IMF Working Papers

This paper explores the financial stability implications of acute physical climate change risks using a novel approach that focuses on a severe season associated with a sequence of tropical cyclone and flood events. Our approach was recently applied to study physical risks in the Mexican financial sector, but the framework is applicable to other countries as well. We show that even if the scale of individual climate events may not be material at an aggregate national scale, considering a sequence of events could lead to potentially significant macro-financial impacts in the short term. This could occur even if none of the individual events affect the particular region(s) with highest concentrations of banking sector exposures. Our results indicate potential for even greater effects in the future given the increasing severity and frequency of extreme events from climate change. Thus, this paper highlights the importance of considering sequences of extreme physical risk events driven by climate change, rather than just individual extreme events, to better understand financial stability implications and design effective policies.