{
  "title": "Deputy Managing Director Zhang Speech: Climate Change: From Awareness to Action",
  "publication": "IMF News, June 9, 2020",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2020/06/08/sp060920-climate-change-from-awareness-to-action-delphi-economic-forum-v",
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  "summary": "Speech delivered for Delphi Economic Forum V: “The Day After” on June 9, 2020.",
  "publishDate": "2020-06-09",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Context and framing",
      "content": "- Speech delivered for Delphi Economic Forum V: “The Day After” on June 9, 2020.\n- Immediate context: the COVID-19 pandemic is the current crisis, but climate change is identified as a slower-moving, equally critical crisis that is linked to policy choices made during the pandemic response.\n- Paris COP21 referenced as the five-year prior commitment point for global action to curb temperature rise.\n- Europe highlighted as being at the forefront of climate action."
    },
    {
      "heading": "EU commitments and challenges",
      "content": "- Key EU ambition: to be carbon neutral by 2050.\n- European Green Deal and related policy initiatives and investment are presented as central to the EU response.\n- EU recovery architecture: the new Economic Recovery Fund and a revised EU budget under discussion aim to support a green recovery after the pandemic.\n- Noted challenges:\n  - The carbon price under the Emissions Trading System is currently around €25 a ton.\n  - To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, much higher effective carbon prices and more ambitious emissions reductions are needed.\n  - Distributional impacts of ambitious climate policies must be assessed and addressed to ensure a “just and inclusive transition.”\n  - Transition requires massive investment in renewables, smart grids, and electric vehicles and will require mobilizing private finance.\n- Opportunity: the transition to a carbon-neutral economy brings new growth opportunities."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Greece: vulnerabilities, opportunities, and policy questions",
      "content": "- Greece has ample solar and wind capacity that can be tapped.\n- Potential co-benefits of green policies in Greece:\n  - New jobs through smarter urban development and social policies.\n  - Better housing and improved air quality reducing illnesses and deaths related to pollution.\n  - Savings on health spending and increased tourism.\n- Current status:\n  - Greece is among the few countries that have already achieved their 2030 greenhouse gas emission targets.\n  - This achievement mainly reflects reductions in energy demand from the recession.\n  - Greece’s energy structure remains more carbon-intensive than that of many other European countries.\n- National plan:\n  - The new Greek national energy and climate plan envisions a substantial boost in green investment and full closure of lignite plants over the medium term.\n- Two sets of policy questions posed:\n  - What will happen to the lignite-producing areas of Western Macedonia as plants close and workers are adversely affected? What policies are needed to help in the transition toward greener economic activity?\n  - What are the implications for climate change, and climate policies, of Greece’s role as a shipping and tourism hub? These two industries account for about a quarter of Greece’s GDP.\n- Suggested approaches:\n  - Targeted support to affected groups and sectoral diversification to mitigate transitional costs.\n  - A supportive investment climate as a key element to successful transition."
    },
    {
      "heading": "IMF work, tools, and recent assistance",
      "content": "- IMF is scaling up work on both mitigation and adaptation.\n- Analytical and policy work includes:\n  - Carbon pricing analysis: helping countries understand needed carbon prices, trade-offs with other instruments, and how to design comprehensive, growth-friendly, politically acceptable policies.\n  - Pricing climate risks and providing incentives for climate-resilient investment.\n  - Integrating climate risks and adaptation spending into economic and fiscal plans.\n  - Assessing countries’ climate strategies together with the World Bank, starting with small countries most vulnerable to climate change.\n  - Stress testing of financial systems to assess resilience to natural disasters and climate-motivated policy changes.\n  - Working more closely with central banks on climate-change risks affecting financial and price stability.\n- Example of central bank engagement: the Central Bank of Greece has been very active in this area.\n- Emergency and pandemic-related financing as of June 4:\n  - Nearly $24 billion in emergency financing to 67 countries.\n  - Debt relief of $229 million to 27 of the IMF’s poorest members.\n- The IMF’s readiness:\n  - Emergency lending facilities designed to provide speedy assistance when natural disasters strike or in pandemics.\n  - The IMF is gearing up efforts to help membership recover toward a better, greener future."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Core policy messages and recommendations",
      "content": "- Keep climate change in mind as countries move from rescue to recovery; ensure a “green recovery” for Greece, Europe, and the planet.\n- Act on multiple fronts:\n  - Reduce emissions and offset what cannot be reduced.\n  - Address social and economic consequences of the transition (ensure fairness and inclusivity).\n  - Seize economic opportunities from a greener economy through investment and private finance mobilization.\n- No institution or individual can stand on the sidelines; coordinated action is required across fiscal, financial, and structural policies.\n\nSource: Deputy Managing Director Zhang Speech: Climate Change: From Awareness to Action (Delphi Economic Forum V), June 9, 2020.\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- Tao Zhang\n- Greece and the IMF\n- Speeches\n- PRESS CENTER\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2020/06/08/sp060920-climate-change-from-awareness-to-action-delphi-economic-forum-v"
    }
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    "Published: June 9, 2020",
    "Speech delivered for Delphi Economic Forum V: “The Day After” on June 9, 2020.",
    "Immediate context: the COVID-19 pandemic is the current crisis, but climate change is identified as a slower-moving, equally critical crisis that is linked to policy choices made during the pandemic response.",
    "Paris COP21 referenced as the five-year prior commitment point for global action to curb temperature rise.",
    "Europe highlighted as being at the forefront of climate action.",
    "Key EU ambition: to be carbon neutral by 2050.",
    "European Green Deal and related policy initiatives and investment are presented as central to the EU response.",
    "EU recovery architecture: the new Economic Recovery Fund and a revised EU budget under discussion aim to support a green recovery after the pandemic.",
    "Noted challenges:",
    "Opportunity: the transition to a carbon-neutral economy brings new growth opportunities.",
    "Greece has ample solar and wind capacity that can be tapped.",
    "Potential co-benefits of green policies in Greece:",
    "Current status:",
    "National plan:",
    "Two sets of policy questions posed:",
    "Suggested approaches:",
    "IMF is scaling up work on both mitigation and adaptation.",
    "Analytical and policy work includes:",
    "Example of central bank engagement: the Central Bank of Greece has been very active in this area.",
    "Emergency and pandemic-related financing as of June 4:",
    "The IMF’s readiness:",
    "Keep climate change in mind as countries move from rescue to recovery; ensure a “green recovery” for Greece, Europe, and the planet.",
    "Act on multiple fronts:",
    "No institution or individual can stand on the sidelines; coordinated action is required across fiscal, financial, and structural policies.",
    "[Tao Zhang](https://www.imf.org/en/About/senior-officials/Bios/tao-zhang)",
    "[Greece and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/GRC/index.htm)",
    "[Speeches](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)",
    "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)"
  ],
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