1 Introduction
Ladies and gentlemen,
Nobel laureate William Nordhaus has called it "the ultimate challenge": climate change. His words for the potential consequences if we fail to master this challenge were drastic: "Technological change raised humans out of Stone Age living standards. Climate change threatens, in the most extreme scenarios, to return us economically whence we came."[1] Nordhaus also referred to The Colossus, the ominous painting that has been attributed to Goya: "[Global warming] menaces our planet and looms over our future like a Colossus."
But how can we defeat this monstrosity? Who will forge the sword that we need? The market, governments or even the central banks? That is the question I would like to focus on over the next 15 minutes.
2 Effective and efficient climate policy
The International Energy Agency expects global CO2 emissions to fall by 7% in 2020. Unfortunately, this is not a sign of a transition towards a Instead, it is the result of the coronavirus pandemic, which has profoundly affected our everyday lives.