This week is Kristalina Georgieva’s “debut” party: as the newly installed managing director of the IMF, she is presiding over her inaugural annual meeting of the fund.
As she moves around Washington, investors should note one intriguing detail: the first public panel she chose to participate in this week did not focus on the economic outlook or IMF reform programmes. Instead, she headlined the event, “Can Central Banks Fight Climate Change?” where she not only called on central bankers to act, but announced that the IMF “is gearing up very rapidly to integrate climate risks into our surveillance work”.
A cynic might be tempted to dismiss this as a public relations stunt. After all, central bankers never used to think that their mandate covered environmental issues. And the IMF’s staff sometimes joke that the institution should be called, “It’s Mostly Fiscal”, given its past policy stance.