COP26(PHOTO: IMF PHOTO/CRISPIN RODWELL) The main message that emerged from the first week of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) was clear: the global community needs to do more to stem climate change and it needs to happen faster if the goal of net-zero emissions by mid-century is to become a reality. “Perhaps the fact that the people most affected by climate change are no longer some imagined future generation but young people alive today–perhaps that will give us the impetus we need to rewrite our story,” Sir David Attenborough said in a speech to the conference. Keeping 1.5 alive: A new IMF staff climate note shows unchanged global policies will leave 2030 carbon emissions far higher than needed to meet the window of opportunity for containing global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. Cuts of 55 percent below baseline levels in 2030 would be urgently needed to meet that goal, and of 30 percent to meet the 2 degrees Celsius objective. 
‘Is this how our story is due to end?’: Attenborough asked the question in his remarks, wondering if we are doomed to fail due to the “all-too-human characteristic of failing to see the bigger picture in pursuit of short-term goals.” History may be the only true judge of the outcomes from COP26, but the IMF and others made an appeal for tangible steps that can be taken to reach a net-zero emissions world by mid-century. Carbon pricing: Making fossil fuel emissions more costly while ensuring a just transition to greener sources of energy will be key. The IMF has proposed an international carbon price floor that is differentiated based on level of development and pragmatic, allowing for a range of pricing and non-pricing measures to reach the same outcome. “The more you mitigate, the less dramatic the circumstances will be,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview with Reuters this week A global carbon price exceeding $75 per ton would be needed by 2030, to keep warming below 2 degrees, Georgieva wrote in a blog this week. Also be sure to read her remarks to the COP26 World Leader’s Summit. Read the BlogF&D Magazine(PHOTO: IMF PHOTO/RAPHAEL ALVES) F&D: Our Last, Best Chance on ClimateAmar Bhattacharya and Nicholas Stern hope the COP26 meeting will usher in a new era of sustainable development. We must not go back to the old normal; it’s imperative to build back better through sustainable, inclusive, and resilient growth, the two write in a piece for the Fall issue of Finance & Development Magazine, produced in conjunction with COP26. Read the full article on the web or download a PDF.Want to get a print copy delivered to your home or office? Click here.Economic ResearchAnnual Research ConferenceThis year’s IMF Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference focused on strategies to bring about a resilient recovery by boosting growth and reducing inequality across and within countries. A highlight from Thursday included a conversation between IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath and Raghuram Rajan, a University of Chicago professor who previously served at IMF chief economist and governor of the Reserve Bank of India. The two discussed vaccines, the recovery, and policies in advanced economies and emerging markets. Differing views: Rajan touched on issues related to inflation, adjustments in the labor market, expansionary fiscal policy, scarring in emerging markets and the outlook on China. “I would argue that to some extent the views on inflation are dichotomous,” he said. “One view is everything is transitory–when all this dies down we’ll go back to slow and low inflation…many others, including me, believe this time is different, especially given the massive fiscal support post-pandemic and continuing today.” Be sure to check out papers presented on vaccines, fiscal policy, distributional impacts of the pandemic. Also catch the Mundell-Fleming Lecture from Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, of the University of California-Berkeley, on “International Macroeconomics: From the Great Financial Crisis to the Great Lockdown, and Beyond.” The conference continues today with sessions on supply chains and mitigation policies. Taxation(PHOTO: SUNSHINE SEEDS BY GETTY IMAGES) Countering Tax AvoidanceMaking multinational companies pay their fair share in taxes has been front and center, especially with the recent news of an international deal to set a minimum corporate tax rate. In sub-Saharan Africa’s mining sector the issue is no less, multinational enterprises are avoiding paying their taxes, resulting in a significant loss of revenue for many governments, the IMF’s Giorgia Albertin, Dan Devlin, and Boriana Yontcheva write in a new blog. New IMF staff research shows that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa—now under tremendous pressure to raise public spending in response to the pandemic—are losing between $450 and $730 million per year in corporate income tax revenues as the result of profit shifting by multinational companies in the mining sector. Targeted policy actions could help. Voices from the region: This topic was the subject of a seminar today moderated by IMF Deputy Managing Director Antoinette M. Sayeh and featuring Ipumbu Shiimi, Minister of Finance of Namibia; Lassané Kaboré, Minister of Economy, Finance and Development of Burkina Faso; Tom Butler, former CEO of the International Council on Mining and Metals; and Léonce Ndikumana, Independent Commission for the Reform of International Taxation. Read the Blog | 
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