Climate Goals and Debt: A Fiscal Balancing Act

IMF Podcasts

Global warming is wreaking havoc on so many levels, but climate action is costly and presents policymakers with difficult tradeoffs. High debt, rising interest rates, and weaker growth prospects make public finances harder to balance and climate goals harder to achieve. This is where fiscal policy and climate mitigation meet and why the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department is trying to help countries manage their limited resources. Economists Christine Richmond and Raphael Lam work on climate policy and the annual publications of the IMF Fiscal Monitor. In this podcast, they say governments now face a policy trilemma between achieving climate goals, fiscal sustainability, and political feasibility.

Transcript: https://bit.ly/3sT6JmP