A era da incerteza climática : bancos centrais e sistemas financeiros sob o antropoceno

Abstract

From the perspective of central banks, the interconnections between financial systems and climate change are examined. These interconnections tend to be bidirectional: on the one hand, financial systems channel abundant flows of resources to carbon-intensive activities, exacerbating environmental imbalances; on the other hand, climate change, through physical, responsive and transitional risk channels, accentuates the instability of financial systems. The investigation concentrates, with greater diligence, in the second direction, resorting to three techniques of economic analysis: theoretical, statistical and historical. The theoretical exam, through Minsky's background, elucidates the processes by which the scenarios that guide investment decisions become more opaque in the face of climate uncertainty. In addition, cash inflows and outflows tend to be compromised by the climate emergency, so that units initially operating under the hedge financing regime may migrate to the speculative or even Ponzi regime, further destabilizing financial systems. The prophylactic measure would involve the construction of a "Great Green Central Bank". Statistical research, in turn, makes it possible to measure the impacts of the environmental crisis on monetary volatility. For a sample of 90 countries between 2002 and 2020, a positive relationship between environmental degradation and inflationary instability was verified, through the generalized method of moments (GMM). Thus, evidencing the macroeconomic destabilizing effects of climate change. Meanwhile, central banks – responsible for maintaining stability – remain committed to conventional monetary policies, abandoning them only in periods of crisis. Finally, the use of historical analysis reveals, among other "lessons", the support that central banks systematically offer to the process of capitalist accumulation, ensuring that the obstacles to the circuits of production and circulation are overcome and do not interrupt accumulation. The same process of accumulation demanded unquantifiable volumes of natural resources and generated a gigantic environmental liability, engendering a new geological era: the Anthropocene. The historical analysis has thus exposed the indirect links between central bank policy and environmental degradation, even though the theme has appeared on the economic research agenda only very recently.