klaas knot speaks with mps about inflation november what has caused the recent sharp rise in inflation, and where is it heading? and what is the european central bank doing to bring inflation back to the 2 % meeting with standing parliamentary committee for finance, 24 november : what are the factors behind the current rapidly rising inflation? we are coming out of a lengthy period of low inflation. between 2011 and mid - 2021, euro area inflation averaged 1. 2 %, which is below the ecb's price stability target of 2 %. the ecb's monetary policy was therefore very accommodative for a long time, with the additional aim of preventing self - reinforcing effects via falling inflation expectations and deflation. inflation subsequently rose sharply for various reasons. starting in the first half of 2021, covid - 19 lockdowns led to shortages of manufacturing resources such as computer chips along with higher costs for container transport. this resulted in price hikes that also hit consumers directly starting in the summer of 2021. energy prices began to rise in late 2021. inflation was boosted further when the economy reopened in early 2022, with demand for goods and especially services recovering strongly and outpacing supply. russia's invasion of ukraine then caused natural gas prices in europe to skyrocket and food prices to soar. these factors came in rapid succession and persisted for longer than anticipated. consequently, inflation has now been high for longer and has gradually spread from energy to food, industrial goods and services. inflation in the netherlands has now reached 16. 8 % ( in the euro area : 10. 6 % ) in october. the price increases of energy and food are the most remarkable. more than two thirds of harmonised hicp inflation can be ascribed to energy and food. expressed in percentages : of the 16. 8 % hicp inflation in the netherlands, almost 12 percentage points are accounted for by energy ( 9. 7 points ) and food ( 2. 2 points ). © dnb the calculation method used by statistics netherlands creates an upward distortion of dutch inflation in the order of 3 - 4 percentage points. this distortion is largely time - shifted : consumers with fixed energy contracts will also eventually face higher gas prices. where do we see inflation going? the exceptional economic circumstances are creating great uncertainty about the future path of inflation. ecb projections call for euro area inflation to remain high in 2023, only approaching levels near 2 % in 2024. related upside risks are linked

steven maijoor : managing climate and environmental related risk stepping up the pace speech by mr steven maijoor, executive director of supervision of the netherlands bank, at the morningstar sustainable investing summit 2023, amsterdam, 12 october 2023. * * * i was with my family in greece for the summer holidays. one evening we walked through a street in athens with restaurants lined up along the street, and there was a man trying to lure tourists into his restaurant. when he approached us i told him we had other plans, but somehow i wanted to know how he was doing. so i asked him. and what i did not expect was that he started ranting, a complete stranger, about how the summers had become unbearably hot, and that the number of tourists was already declining as a result. he was very depressed about the whole situation and he confided in me that he was seriously considering moving to norway. i was shocked and sad because i saw he really meant it. and the hard truth hit home again that the climate crisis is here and now, and it is affecting the lives of real people. and on top of that, it is affecting our economies. and when it affects our economies, it affects our financial sector as well. financial institutions are exposed to climate and environmental risk. think for instance about the risk of a flood in the western part of the netherlands. don't forget we are below sea level here. serious flooding could increase a bank's credit risk following damage to collateral such as houses and other buildings. and this would then require a bank to draw on its capital reserves. that's what we call physical risk. and then there is transition risk as well. transitioning to a net - zero society will likely lead to adjusted or new government policies. it could also lead to technological advances, or changes in market sentiment and market preferences. the transition to a net - zero economy creates risk for financial institutions that are highly exposed to sectors of the economy that are unprepared. governments, for example, could impose higher taxes on greenhouse gas emissions. as a result, the revenue of an energy - intensive company could decline. and this could impact the company's creditworthiness and its ability to repay outstanding debts to banks. physical and transition risks are not only related to climate change. financial institutions are also exposed to risk stemming from the degradation of nature, and actions aimed at preserving and restoring it. nature provides services that are essential