{
  "title": "The Adaptive Age",
  "publication": "IMF Blog, December 2, 2019",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2019/12/02/blog-the-adaptive-age",
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  "summary": "By Kristalina Georgieva: No institution or individual can stand on the sidelines in the fight against climate change When I think of the incredible challenges we must confront in the face of a changing climate, my mind focuses on young people.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Key message and framing",
      "content": "- Author: Kristalina Georgieva\n- Publication date: December 2, 2019\n- Central claim: No institution or individual can stand on the sidelines in the fight against climate change; we are entering an age of adaptation and must be smart about it.\n- Intergenerational framing and scenarios highlighted:\n  - Kristalina Georgieva references her 9-year-old granddaughter.\n  - By age 20: climate change may push an additional 100 million people into poverty.\n  - By age 40: 140 million may become climate migrants.\n  - By age 90: the planet may be 3–4° hotter and barely livable.\n- Framing of adaptation: adaptation is not a defeat but a defense that can deliver a “triple dividend”:\n  - Averting future losses.\n  - Spurring economic gains through innovation.\n  - Delivering social and environmental benefits, especially to those most at risk."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Reality check: current climate risks and adaptation imperative",
      "content": "- Observed trends:\n  - More frequent and more severe weather-related events: more droughts, more floods, more heat waves, more storms.\n- Economic and human impacts cited:\n  - Countries already vulnerable to natural disasters suffer immediate loss of life and long-lasting economic effects.\n  - In some countries, total economic losses exceed 200 percent of GDP—example: Hurricane Maria struck Dominica in 2017.\n- IMF positioning:\n  - IMF considers climate change a systemic risk to the macroeconomy.\n  - IMF’s mission: help members build stronger economies and improve people’s lives through sound monetary, fiscal, and structural policies.\n  - IMF is stepping up efforts through research and policy advice."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Mitigation plus adaptation: policy tools and fiscal considerations",
      "content": "- Mitigation focus:\n  - Intensify work on carbon pricing and help governments craft road maps from brown to green economies.\n  - Carbon taxes recommended as powerful and efficient tools.\n  - Latest IMF analysis finds large emitting countries need to introduce a carbon tax that rises quickly to $75 a ton in 2030, consistent with limiting global warming to 2°C or less.\n  - Carbon taxes must be implemented in a careful and growth-friendly fashion; retool tax systems in fair, creative, and efficient ways—not just add a new tax.\n  - Example: Sweden used higher transfers and tax cuts for low- and middle-income households to offset higher energy costs after introducing a carbon tax.\n- Fiscal uses of carbon tax revenues:\n  - Revenues estimated at 1–3 percent of GDP.\n  - A portion could be directed back to low-income households.\n  - A portion could support firms and households that choose green pathways.\n- Adaptation focus:\n  - Need to price risk and provide incentives for investment, including in new technologies.\n  - Updated building codes and climate-resilient agriculture (including more research and development) are cited as concrete adaptive investments.\n- IMF instruments and support:\n  - Emergency lending facilities provide speedy assistance to low-income countries hit by disasters.\n  - IMF supports resilience-building strategies and capacity building through training and technical assistance to better manage disaster risks and responses.\n  - Collaboration with other organizations, notably the World Bank on Climate Change Policy Assessments, to identify gaps in mitigation and adaptation plans, risk management strategies, and financing."
    },
    {
      "heading": "New frontiers: financial sector, central banks, and climate risk management",
      "content": "- Role of central banks and regulators:\n  - Central banks, as guardians of financial and price stability, are adapting regulatory frameworks and practices to address climate risks.\n  - Many central banks and regulators seek to improve climate risk disclosure and classification standards to help financial institutions and investors assess climate-related exposures.\n  - IMF works with the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System and other standard-setting bodies.\n- Climate-related financial tools and standards:\n  - Encourage development of climate-related “stress tests” for banks, insurers, and nonfinancial firms to assess impacts of severe adverse climate-driven shocks on solvency and financial stability.\n  - IMF will help push forward climate change stress testing, including through its assessments of countries’ financial sectors and economies.\n  - Careful calibration of stress testing is needed because shocks or policy actions may have little historical precedent.\n- Mobilizing finance:\n  - Efforts aim to ensure more money flows into low-carbon, climate-resilient investments.\n  - Rapid increase of green bonds is a positive trend, but much more is required.\n  - Call to intensify global cooperation to exchange knowledge, formulate and implement policies, and finance the transition to a new climate economy.\n\nSource: The Adaptive Age — Kristalina Georgieva, December 2, 2019\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- عربي,\n- 日本語\n- Português\n- stepping up\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2019/12/02/blog-the-adaptive-age"
    }
  ],
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    "[Markdown version](/en/blogs/articles/2019/12/02/blog-the-adaptive-age/index.md)",
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    "Authors: Kristalina Georgieva",
    "Published: December 2, 2019",
    "Author: Kristalina Georgieva",
    "Publication date: December 2, 2019",
    "Central claim: No institution or individual can stand on the sidelines in the fight against climate change; we are entering an age of adaptation and must be smart about it.",
    "Intergenerational framing and scenarios highlighted:",
    "Framing of adaptation: adaptation is not a defeat but a defense that can deliver a “triple dividend”:",
    "Observed trends:",
    "Economic and human impacts cited:",
    "IMF positioning:",
    "Mitigation focus:",
    "Fiscal uses of carbon tax revenues:",
    "Adaptation focus:",
    "IMF instruments and support:",
    "Role of central banks and regulators:",
    "Climate-related financial tools and standards:",
    "Mobilizing finance:",
    "[عربي,](https://www.imf.org/ar/News/Articles/2019/12/02/blog-the-adaptive-age)",
    "[日本語](https://www.imf.org/ja/News/Articles/2019/12/02/blog-the-adaptive-age)",
    "[Português](https://www.imf.org/pt/News/Articles/2019/12/02/blog-the-adaptive-age?sc_mode=1)",
    "[stepping up](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/index.htm)"
  ],
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  "generatedAtUtc": "2026-08-27T16:43:46.388Z"
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