Arab News Japan

TOKYO: The International Monetary Fund is putting climate change “at the heart of its work” believing it to be an even greater threat than the Covid-19 pandemic to the planet and humanity, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva announced at the Climate Adaptation Summit on Monday.

“As we aim to exit the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic crisis it has triggered, we must face a greater threat – that of a changing climate,” Georgieva told the High-Level Session of the Climate Adaptation Summit.

“It is a fundamental risk to economic and financial stability,” added Georgieva who was chief executive officer at the World Bank before taking over as head of the IMF.

This comes as US president Joe Biden’s newly appointed “climate tsar” former Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to announce this week sweeping new measures designed to combat climate change in the US and to elevate the issue to a national security priority.

Meanwhile China’s president Xi Jinping was also expected to elaborate on measures proposed by the world’s second largest economy when he addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.

“Climate change “is also an opportunity to reinvigorate growth and create new green jobs,” she said. “Our research shows that combining steadily rising carbon prices with a green infrastructure push can boost global GDP over the next 15 years by about 0.7 percent and generate work for millions of people.”

The Climate Adaptation Summit or CAS is taking place online on January 25-26 and hosted by the Netherlands as a forum to convene global leaders and local stakeholders.

It is due to launch “a Comprehensive Adaptation Action Agenda that sets out clear commitments to deliver concrete new endeavours and partnerships to make our world more resilient to the effects of climate change.”

The meeting comes in advance of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, which is  scheduled to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, from 1 to 12 November 2021 under the presidency of the United Kingdom.

As reported in Arab News Japan, the task of saving the Earth from existential threats facing the planet and its 7.8 billion inhabitants and dealing with other  socio-economic challenges such as poverty, inequality and threatened social unrest over competition for resources is still far from being a “done deal.”

Despite the shift on the part of the Biden administration to far more enlightened attitudes and actions than those of the Trump era, and despite emission targets being adopted widely, the question of who is going to implement needed changes and who will pay for them remains unanswered.