Christine Lagarde: Climate, nature and monetary policy
Introductory remarks by Ms Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, at the Climate, Nature and Monetary Policy Conference, jointly organised by the ECB, the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise (CETEx) and the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Frankfurt am Main, 5 May 2026.
It is a pleasure to open this conference on climate, nature and monetary policy – the first of its kind at the ECB and one that would have been hard to imagine even a decade ago.
Not because climate risk was unrecognised at the time. The scientific community had long been clear about its seriousness, and the Paris Agreement set a common direction of travel for governments, which carry the primary responsibility for tackling climate change.
Rather, the attention given to what climate change meant for central banks – in research and in policy – was still in its infancy. And where it did exist, it focused primarily on the consequences for financial stability, with landmark interventions as early as 2015.
The implications for monetary policy came into focus more slowly. For instance, it was only in 2018 that an ECB Executive Board member devoted a speech to the topic – and even then, the case made was largely hypothetical, reflecting, in part, the lack of substantive research at the time.
The consequences of nature risks for monetary policy took longer still to enter the policy conversation.
Measured against those early days, the distance covered by researchers and monetary policymakers has been substantial – as this conference's rich agenda shows.
However, the journey of the past decade has also been bittersweet. Global efforts to tackle the climate and nature crises have not progressed nearly as well as many would have hoped.
But this shortfall does not mean our efforts have been in vain. If anything, it sharpens the case for deeper analysis from the research and central banking communities – to better understand the risks that lie ahead, and to distinguish the signals of science from the noise of politics.