An Apocalypse Foretold Climate Shocks And Sovereign Defaults

Climate change poses an existential threat to the global economy. While there is a growing body of literature on the economic consequences of climate change, research on the link between climate change and sovereign default risk is nonexistent. We aim to fill this gap in the literature by estimating the impact of climate change vulnerability and resilience on the probability of sovereign debt default. Using a sample of 116 countries over the period 1995–2017, we find that climate change vulnerability and resilience have significant effects on the probability of sovereign debt default, especially among low-income countries. That is, countries with greater vulnerability to climate change face a higher likelihood of debt default compared to more climate resilient countries. These findings remain robust to a battery of sensitivity checks, including alternative measures of sovereign debt default, model specifications, and estimation methodologies.

What is the impact of climate change on inflation and growth dynamics? This is not a simple question to answer as climate shocks tend to be ubiquitous, but with opposing effects simultaneously on demand and supply. The extent of which climate-related shocks affect inflation and economic growth also depends on long-run scarring in the economy and the country’s fiscal and institutional capacity to support recovery. In this paper, we use the local projection method to empirically investigate how climate shocks, as measured by climate-induced natural disasters, influence inflation and economic growth in a large panel of countries over the period 1970–2020. The results shows that both inflation and real GDP growth respond significantly but also differently in terms of direction and magnitude to different types of disasters caused by climate change. We split the full sample of countries into income groups—advanced economies and developing countries—and find a striking contrast in the impact of climate shocks on inflation and growth according to income level, state of the economy, and fiscal space when the shock hits.

Climate change is an existential threat to the global economy and financial markets. There is a large body of literature documenting potential macroeconomic consequences of climate change, but firm-level empirical research on how climate change affects the performance of firms remains scarce. This paper aims to close this gap by empirically investigating the impact of climate change vulnerability on corporate performance using a large panel dataset of more than 3.3 million nonfinancial firms from 24 developing countries over the period 1997–2019. We find that nonfinancial firms operating in countries with greater vulnerability to climate change tend to experience difficulty in access to debt financing even at higher interest rates, while being less productive and profitable relative to firms in countries with lower vulnerability to climate change. We confirm these findings with alternative measures of climate change vulnerability. Furthermore, partitioning the sample reveals that these effects are significantly greater for smaller firms, especially in high-risk sectors and countries and countries with weaker capacity to adapt to and mitigate the consequences of climate change.

This paper investigates the connection between climate change and energy security in Europe and provides empirical evidence that these issues are the two faces of the same coin. Using a panel of 39 countries in Europe over the period 1980–2019, the empirical analysis presented in this paper indicates that increasing the share of nuclear, renewables, and other non-hydrocarbon energy and improving energy efficiency could lead to a significant reduction in carbon emissions and improve energy security throughout Europe. Accordingly, policies and reforms aimed at shifting away from hydrocarbons and increasing energy efficiency in distribution and consumption are key to mitigating climate change, reducing energy dependence, and minimizing exposure to energy price volatility.

Governments are facing significant climate-related risks from the expected increase in frequency and intensity of cyclones, floods, fires, and other climate-related extreme events. The report Building Financial Resilience to Climate Impacts: A Framework for Governments to Manage the Risks of Losses and Damages provides a strategic framework to help governments, particularly those in emerging market and developing economies, strengthen their capacity to manage the financial implications of climate-related risks.

Selected Issues

As climate change accelerates, the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are expected to worsen and have greater adverse consequences for ecosystems, physical infrastructure, and economic activity across the world. This paper investigates how weather anomalies affect global supply chains and inflation dynamics. Using monthly data for six large and well-diversified economies (China, the Euro area, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States) over the period 1997-2021, we implement a structural vector autoregressive model and document that weather anomalies could disrupt supply chains and subsequently lead to inflationary pressures. Our results—based on high-frequency data and robust to alternative estimation methodologies—show that these effects vary across countries, depending on the severity of weather shocks and vulnerability to supply chain disruptions. The impact of weather shocks on supply chains and inflation dynamics is likely to become more pronounced with accelerating climate change that can have non-linear effects. These findings have important policy implications. Central bankers should consider the impact of weather anomalies on supply chains and inflation dynamics to prevent entrenching second-round effects and de-anchoring of inflation expectations. More directly, however, governments can invest more for climate change adaptation to strengthen critical infrastructure and thereby minimize supply chain disruptions.

Adaptation to climate change is an integral part of sustainable development and a necessity for advanced and developing economies alike. How can adaptation be planned for and mainstreamed into fiscal policy? Setting up inclusive coordination mechanisms and strengthening legal foundations to incorporate climate change can be a prerequisite. This Note identifies four building blocks: 1. Taking stock of present and future climate risks, identifying knowledge and capacity gaps, and establishing guidance for next steps. 2. Developing adaptation solutions. This block can be guided by extending the IMF three-pillar disaster resilience strategy to address changes in both extreme and average weather and would cover the prevention of risks, the alleviation of residual risks, and macro-fiscal resilience. 3. Mainstreaming these solutions into government operations. This requires strengthening public financial management institutions by factoring climate risks and adaptation plans into budgets and macro-frameworks, and in the management of public investment, assets and liabilities. 4. Providing for transparent evaluations to inform future plans. This involves continually monitoring progress and regularly updating adaptation plans.