Whitehouse Warns IMF: Caving to Political Pressure on Climate Risk Would Be a Grave Mistake

Washington, D.C.—Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), is urging the International Monetary Fund to continue analyzing the risks that climate change poses to global financial markets and economic stability amid public reports that the Fund may cave to pressure from the Trump Administration and sideline its climate work.  In his letter, Ranking Member Whitehouse warns that “[d]oing so would be a grave mistake that would undermine the IMF’s mission to ensure economic growth and financial stability and compromise its reputation for integrity and adherence to facts.”

Financial and economic experts have warned of the serious and systemic risks climate change poses to the global economy.  Among their warnings: sea level rise and more intense storms could make more than $1 trillion in coastal real estate uninsurable, and therefore unmortgageable; more frequent and intense wildfires could result in a similar death spiral for Western property values; and climate-related losses are making it harder for the insurance industry to price risk, which has already led to skyrocketing premiums and growth in non-renewals.  Recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified that in “10 or 15 years there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage,” and research has shown that climate change could erase $1.4 trillion in U.S. real estate value due to insurance pressures and shifting consumer demand from the highest-risk places. 

Despite the broad consensus on the economic dangers of climate change, the Trump Administration has referred to it as a “con job” and is waging a wholesale assault against clean energy and efforts to reduce carbon pollution.  The Department of Energy recently published a pseudoscientific report—written by known climate deniers with close ties to the fossil fuel industry—that was rife with clear errors, cherry-picked data, and misrepresented facts to peddle the lie that human-caused climate change is not a threat.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) relied, in part, on that so-called report in its proposal to repeal the endangerment finding, the bedrock scientific finding underpinning EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  The rollback, if finalized, would constitute a formal denial by the agency that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare—a position that defies decades of scientific evidence, agency precedent, and Supreme Court rulings.

“Legions of central bankers, economists, insurers, and financial experts are sounding the alarm about the multiple threats that climate change poses to the global economy. Do not yield to bullies’ fact-free bloviation that this mass of evidence is all a ‘woke’ ‘hoax.’ I appreciate the IMF’s excellent work on climate risks and fossil fuel subsidies, based on peer-reviewed methods of analysis, and I look forward to your future honest work on these topics,” concluded the Senator.

The full letter can be found HERE.