The International Monetary Fund hosted a virtual conference to discuss Asian countries’ challenges in implementing climate-friendly policies.
The IMF’s Embedding Climate Change into Asia's Recovery Strategy talk brought together economic leaders to discuss how to recover from the coronavirus pandemic while also addressing climate change
“Climate change poses an existential threat to the region,” IMF stated. “Left unchecked, the implications for lives, livelihoods, and economies are significant. To achieve the goal of reducing climate risks and averting future calamities, countries could already act to help achieve a more sustainable and inclusive recovery.”
The panelists also explored supporting private-sector green financing as a means to redirect capital from "brown" to green investment.
The conference was hosted by IMF (Antoinette Sayeh, deputy managing director), and Indonesia (Sri Mulyani Indrawati, minister of finance). Indrawati also joined the rest of the panelists from Singapore (Ravi Menon, managing director, Monetary Authority of Singapore), the Philippines (Benjamin E. Diokno, governor, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas), and Thailand (Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, minister of finance).