IMF Takes Positive Step Into Climate Debate

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde at Center for Global Development, Washington DC.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not known as a bastion of progressive thinking. But last month, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde used a speech at the Center for Global Development to begin an IMF-housed discussion on the use of macroeconomic policy to address what she explained as the interconnected economic, environmental, and social crises. The IMF has since released an e-book titled Fiscal Policy to Mitigate Climate Change that makes the policy argument for different carbon tax and cap-and-trade systems. It also sent Lagarde to the Rio+20 summit as the first IMF head to attend an environmental summit.

Capital Institute salutes this great first step by the IMF and looks forward to further progress.