Climate change mitigation progressing too slowly: ECB

Isabel Schnabel, board member of the European Central Bank (ECB), spoke out on climate change at the European Sustainable Finance Summit.

"There is a growing debate about the role that monetary policy should play in countering the risks of climate change," Schnabel said.

The pandemic also demonstrates the vulnerability of financial markets to events whose effects are not manageable and restored to a state of relative stability. This is a risk that many observers see in flawed pricing or in climate threats.

Schnabel argued that despite increasing efforts, policies to mitigate the negative and partly irreversible effects of climate change are not advancing fast enough to reduce the physical and financial risks that global warming poses to our society.

She added that concerted action was needed by governments, businesses, investors, households and central banks, including the ECB, to accelerate the transition to a carbon neutral economy and to correct existing market failures.

(ECB)