Thomas Stubbs

Greening the International Monetary Fund Cambridge Core - American Government, Politics and Policy - Greening the International Monetary Fund

Greening the International Monetary Fund by Alexandros Kentikelenis and Thomas Stubbs
Open access via Cambridge University Press: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

#IMF #ClimateFinance #GlobalGovernance #ClimatePolicy

By tracing how climate issues are translated into lending, conditionality, and surveillance, we show how international organizations evolve when faced with new global challenges — often incrementally, and with tensions between innovation and continuity.

Overall, we find a complex picture.
The IMF is adapting — but unevenly.
Its climate engagement signals real institutional change, yet remains constrained by the same market logic that has long defined its approach to development.

Even the IMF’s climate advice is framed within familiar parameters: carbon pricing and market-friendly de-risking.
This selective approach helps align climate policy with existing economic orthodoxy, rather than transforming it.

Yet, the bulk of IMF lending still reflects older priorities.
Fiscal tightening and market-oriented reforms remain central — policies that can constrain climate investment and limit fiscal space for a just green transition.

The RSF represents genuine innovation.
It channels new resources (recycled SDRs) to countries undertaking climate-related reforms, often around public investment management, fiscal frameworks, and private climate finance mobilisation.

We identify three organizational dynamics:
1️⃣ Innovation – The RSF introduces new, long-term finance for climate adaptation and mitigation.
2️⃣ Inertia – Traditional IMF loans still prioritise fiscal consolidation.
3️⃣ Experimentation – Climate advice appears in surveillance and Article IV reports.

Using new cross-national data and case studies, we find that the Fund’s climate turn is real but limited.
Climate objectives are now present across IMF activities — but in uneven, and often contradictory, ways.

Our book asks three core questions:
1️⃣ How much progress has the IMF made in greening its operations?
2️⃣ What is the policy track record of its climate lending?
3️⃣ How do traditional lending and surveillance activities incorporate climate risks?

This marks a major evolution for the Fund — an institution historically focused on monetary stability and fiscal adjustment, not environmental protection.
Yet integrating climate concerns into macroeconomic management is now seen as “macro-critical.”

The IMF has positioned itself as a central actor in climate policy. Since 2021, it has launched a Climate Strategy and created the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) to support countries facing adaptation and mitigation challenges.

Greening the International Monetary Fund Cambridge Core - American Government, Politics and Policy - Greening the International Monetary Fund

Our new book — Greening the International Monetary Fund (Cambridge University Press, 2025) — examines how climate change has become embedded within the IMF’s operations, and what this means for global economic governance.
📖 Open access: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

The US Treasury has put the ongoing IMF Surveillance review at the top of the agenda as they want to stop the Fund’s work on climate. But what’s the IMF’s track record since the 2021 Climate Strategy?

Read more in our new @re-course.org report: bit.ly/IMFsurveillance
🧵1/9

Teal blue background, white text. Heading says "IMF climate action: green rhetoric, grey reality?" Subheading says "Read our assessment of IMF surveillance and climate action, with recommendations for the current surveillance policy review". Screenshot of report cover page showing a grey building covered by green vines. White background at the bottom with logos of Recourse and four co-publishing organisations.

Only 4 years ago, the IMF recognised that climate change poses risks to macroeconomic stability.

It cannot be ignored.

Our new report shows how and why the #IMF can't give up on climate, with recommendations for its Surveillance review.

👉 bit.ly/IMFsurveilla... #IMFmeetings

Financing for Whom? The Financing for Development Summit Must Address Social Dimensions The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) will bring world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how to finance a better future for all. Yet, in prac...

Read my article with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr on #FinancingForDevelopment - Financing for whom?

@ipsunbureau.bsky.social @endausterity.bsky.social
#FfD4 #EndAusterity #UniversalSocialProtection #RighttoSocialSecurity #Inequality
www.ipsnews.net/2025/04/fina...

I agree with the sentiment entirely. I do it for free because it's - at least indirectly - required for promotion to professor (i.e. evidence of respect within the field and also fills 'external service'). (More) free labour not accounted for in our workload model. My heart is now full of hate.

You may have seen @gerrymccartney1.bsky.social quoted in the media talking about the implications of the Chancellor's Spring Statement. He's part of a group of experts who have warned that welfare cuts could cause more deaths in @bmj.com

@uofgsocsci.bsky.social

www.gla.ac.uk/news/headlin...

"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital"
—Noam Chomsky

And then it gets worse.

Awesome!

This is a must-read.

Whenever you hear someone sneer about scientific research that seems useless to them — “they’re studying the spit of lizards?!” — remind them that’s exactly how we got Ozempic.

globalnews.ca/news/9793403...

Portal für Politikwissenschaft – Alexandros Kentikelenis, Thomas Stubbs: A Thousand Cuts. Social Protection in the Age of Austerity

Verschärft der IWF durch verordnete Austerität die Ungleichheit? @akentikelenis.bsky.social & @thomstubbs.bsky.social präsentieren die bislang umfassendste empirische Analyse der sozialen Auswirkungen von IWF-Krediten. Henning Schmidtke vom GIGA Institut lobt das Buch als „Meilenstein“.
polisky

Quarter of leading UK universities cutting staff due to budget shortfalls Up to 10,000 redundancies or job losses feared as institutes undergo restructuring

The government’s overall Oh well that’s how it is now attitude when one of the main pillars of your economy crumbles right there for everyone to see is quite difficult to comprehend.

added @jeanmonnetrhul.bsky.social

Each for very different reasons, these were my fave books of 2024 📚

Happy new year friends ✨🍻

ps. Emma’s book (on the political economy of care & its value, second most sold in DK last year) will be out in English in Spring 2025. Keep an eye out 🧐

Added @uhackett.bsky.social @jseglow.bsky.social and @jamessloam.bsky.social

Here's my International Relations starter pack - just answer this post if you want to be included! go.bsky.app/GHjHQu3
#polisky #internationalrelations #econsky #internationalpolitics

🙋‍♂️

Lula at UN: “African countries borrow at rates up to 8 times higher than Germany and 4 times higher than the United States. It’s a Marshall Plan in reverse, in which the poorest finance the richest.”
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/mar...
I presented at G20 Rio
YT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY6Z...