Fed sees climate change shaping economy, policy

(Reuters News, 8 Nov 2019) "To fulfill our core responsibilities, it will be important for the Federal Reserve to study the implications of climate change for the economy and the financial system and to adapt our work accordingly," says its governor.

The U.S. central bank signaled on Friday it may be getting ready to join international peers in incorporating climate change risk into its assessments of financial stability, and may even take it into account when setting monetary policy.

"To fulfill our core responsibilities, it will be important for the Federal Reserve to study the implications of climate change for the economy and the financial system and to adapt our work accordingly," Fed Governor Lael Brainard said in remarks released at the start of the Fed's first-ever conference on climate change and economics.

The Fed, she said, will need to look at how to keep banks and the financial system resilient amid risks from extreme weather, higher temperatures, rising sea levels and other effects of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

And increasingly, she said, "it will be important for the Federal Reserve to take into account the effects of climate change and associated policies in setting monetary policy to achieve our objectives of maximum employment and price stability."

Brainard's comments mark a shift for the Fed, which lags other major central banks that have made climate change an explicit part of their financial stability remits. Her talk, the first she's given in her five-year tenure at the Fed that even mentions the subject, suggests she and her colleagues are taking the risks and costs of global warming seriously.

The U.S. central bank's attention to global warming comes even as President Donald Trump's administration denies it exists. Trump on Monday notified the United Nations that the United States will in 12 months leave the Paris Climate Accord, under which 195 nations agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to prevent catastrophic planetary warming.

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Reuters News, 8 Nov 2019: Fed sees climate change shaping economy, policy