ravi menon : a vibrant carbon market for a low carbon future opening remarks by mr ravi menon, managing director of the monetary authority of singapore, at the climate impact x announcement event, singapore, 20 may 2021. * * * minister for national development mr desmond lee, ladies and gentleman, good afternoon. let me start with the big picture. to limit global warming to 1. 5°c, global annual greenhouse gas emissions need to be halved by 2030 and reduced to net - zero by 2050. yet, the trajectory of carbon emissions is still on a steady uptrend. just on energy needs alone, demand in asia is projected to double in 2030. economic development will drive demand for fossil fuels, which is still the cheapest way to generate electricity in many parts of asia. the switch to cleaner energy sources cannot be made in one leap. coal accounts for about half of asia ’ s total energy supply today. we need to shift the energy mix progressively, first to relatively less emissions - intensive fuels like natural gas, and then to renewables. this shift will require fundamental infrastructure changes : refurbishing power plants to generate cleaner fuels ; and upgrading the power grids to manage different energy sources and to minimise the intermittency of renewables. to make this progressive shift to a low - carbon future, asia will need a lot more transition financing than is available today. to spur more green finance for transition, we need to have two things in place : a price on carbon, and a market for trading carbon credits. carbon prices and carbon markets climate change is the result of probably the biggest market failure in history. for the longest time, the world did not put a price on the carbon emissions that have steadily degraded our environment and now pose serious climate risks. a meaningful price on carbon is critical to create the right incentives to reduce emissions. the challenge is to arrive at the right price, one that does not unduly impede economic development and yet is sufficient to drive decarbonisation efforts that will enable the world to meet its climate targets. carbon pricing is gaining momentum. globally, there are 61 carbon pricing initiatives in place, half of them carbon taxes and the other half emissions trading systems. 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches singapore introduced in 2019 a carbon tax of $ 5 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, to establish the principle of a price on emissions. the original intention was to gradually raise the tax from 2023 onwards to between

speeches published date : 27 may 2022 welcome remarks by mr edward s. robinson, deputy managing director ( economic policy ) & chief economist, monetary authority of singapore, at the 9th asian monetary policy forum on 27 may 2022 1 good morning, md mas mr ravi menon, president nus and chairman of the abfer council, professor tan eng chye, fellow central bankers, distinguished speakers, ladies and gentlemen. together with my co - organisers, professor bernard yeung and professor steve davis, i am pleased to welcome you to the 2022 asian monetary policy forum. 2 in its ninth year now, the ampf comes at an especially opportune time for macroeconomists to advance the discussion on emergent issues in the global economy. after the great moderation, the world has experienced a series of severe shocks, each presenting a stern test for policymakers. 3 the two most recent disruptions — the covid - 19 pandemic and the russia - ukraine conflict — have raised fresh issues for monetary economics and international finance. soon after the lehman crisis, queen elizabeth, during a visit to the lse, posed an inconvenient question : “ why didn ’ t anyone see this coming? ” conceivably if her majesty made another visit today, she may very well ask the same question about global inflation. a comprehensive research agenda to address this query would require pulling together at least four strands of concerns. 4 the first is about the need for a careful identification of each economic shock. early on during the covid - 19 crisis, several macroeconomists including martin eichenbaum and jason furman recognised that the global pandemic was imposing an unfamiliar mix of shocks. it was not simply that the pandemic lowered aggregate supply by making workers ill, or that mobility restrictions reduced demand from private consumption. instead, dynamic interactions between the supply and demand disturbances were causing discontinuous shifts. 5 the current spate of inflationary shocks, including those catalysed by geopolitical events in february, has also highlighted that the supply side can be pertinent for business cycle gyrations, alongside the more commonly - recognised aggregate demand fluctuations. supply - side factors can no longer be regarded as low - frequency phenomena relevant only as determinants of long - term growth. rather, in a globalised world, shocks in one jurisdiction can lead to gridlock in production via supply chain linkages, leading to short -