But the political scene on climate has already been changing dramatically and it will continue to change - hopefully for the better. ** Looking back at how far we have come in developing green finance over the last six years, one may wonder: “Is it useful?” – certainly yes; “Is it enough?” –certainly not. Let me remind everyone of one simple – and dreadful number: according to the IPCC, we have less than six years of greenhouse gases budget left if we want to have 83% chance to stay below 1.5°C. Let’s not fool ourselves: we have been making very significant progress to make sure that the financial system is fit to the challenge of the transition. But there is still much work to do on our side, starting with mandatory and harmonised disclosures, and a close monitoring of transition paths. Still more fundamentally, what we are doing only makes sense if this is part of a wider collective endeavour. Finance, and still more Central banks, cannot be the only green game in town. A few days ahead of Glasgow, it is the right time to listen to the Pink Floyd again and the Dark Side of the Moon: “And then one day you find ten years have got behind you; no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”4. It is not too late yet, but let us hear the starting guns. I thank you for your attention.
It now has 95 members, including the US Fed since last December and this number will still grow in coming weeks. The Banque de France provides its global secretariat with 15 staff, and we created last April our Climate Change Centre chaired by Nathalie Aufauvre. We are indeed making good progress across the board. But each year that passes without sufficient emission reductions makes the issue more severe, and the solutions more radical. To grapple with this dynamic situation, it is imperative that we are able to better understand and forecast the macroeconomic impacts of climate developments. 2. An imperative for the year to come: forge models that gauge the interaction between climate and the economy One aspect of the ECB’s action plan launched on the back of the strategy review may have received too little attention: macroeconomic modelling and scenario analyses. The challenge is huge as we face a triple source of uncertainty: first, how climate change will materialise, second, what the transition could look like and, third, how both will translate to the macroeconomy. The NGFS has produced detailed macro financial scenarios and the corresponding data that provide the most comprehensive framework to date for financial risk assessment. To make such scenarios possible, the central banking community – with a strong involvement of Bank of England and Banque de France among others - has collaborated with first tier research institutes in climate science and economic modelling. This is a huge step forward.