Speech by Sylvie Goulard,  Deputy Governor Banque de France, Green Swan conference 3 June 2021  I would like to thank all the organisers of this Green Swan conference, and especially Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva from the BIS. Luiz has been the soul of the organising team we set up some months ago with the authors of the Green Swan ‐ Prof Bolton, Morgan Després, Luiz Pereira da Silva, Frederic Samama, Romain Svartzman1 – to whom I wish to pay tribute. As the Green Swan was published in January 2020, we were living in a pre‐Covid world. The authors warned of the severe risks associated with climate change and of “other human‐caused caused environmental degradation such as the loss of biodiversity”. The title of the Green Swan is a play on the concept of Nassim (Nicholas) Taleb’s – the Black Swans,2 i.e. events affecting the financial sector that are unexpected, of a large magnitude and can be only explained afterwards), with analogies but also differences: ‐ It is quite certain that climate events will occur even if we don’t know when and how; ‐ They could be even worse than the ones caused by Black Swans, because climate change and many of its impacts are largely irreversible; ‐ no single agent (household, firm, financial institution, government) can hedge against these risks on her/his own. This means that managing Green Swans requires an unprecedented level of cooperation. 1 2  I thank Romain Svartzman for his assistance in preparing these remarks. Taleb, N.N. (2007).
I must hasten to mention, however, that in striving to meet these demands, banks must always comply with the regulations as stipulated in the Banking & Financial Services Act of 1994 as amended in 2000, to ensure the safety of customers’ deposits and stability in the financial sector. Any activities by banks, which do not meet the minimum standards provided for in the law, will invite close scrutiny and possible sanctions from the Bank of Zambia to bring the banks in line with the legal framework. Mr Chairman, following implementation of sound macroeconomic policies, the economy is relatively stable as shown by various indicators: •  Inflation is under control;  •  The Kwacha is stable; and  •  Interest rates are going down, although not yet as low as we would like them to be. The cost of borrowing has remained high in spite of the progress that has been made in the monetary and fiscal management of our economy. This high cost has, in turn, stifled the growth of the productive private sector, in particular the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector, which should be the engine of economic growth of our country.