An IMF fund to fight climate change

David Bois in Tonic: Perhaps the harshest irony inherent in global climate change is that some of the regions least responsible for contributing to the problem are expected to get hit the hardest with the impacts, and are least well poised to absorb the financial costs of the anticipated changes. But as The Atlantic, NPR and others are reporting, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is proposing a funding mechanism designed to help nations out as the effects climate change continue to unfold.

The IMF is picking up where December's UN-sponsored COP15 climate summit left off. The notion of establishing a $30 billion fund right away, with a goal of expanding that to $100 billion by 2020 fund in order to mitigate the anticipated costs due to drought, coastal flooding, and food supply disruption was a central point of discussion at the summit. While a recent update provided by the Calgary Herald indicates that reticence from India and China has stalled efforts for the establishment of the fund, the IMF has decided that the matter needs to move forward promptly.

The announcement is significant in part due to the fact that the IMF, whose mission is typically focused on international monetary matters and extending loans to developing nations, tends to stay away from considering matters of environmental policy. The international body however sees the risks and impacts to be so pervasive and so likely to alter the world's financial system that their involvement becomes necessary….