employment is below its maximum level, as is clearly the the analysis of how alternative strategies that succeed in reducing the frequency and / or severity of elb recessions can induce longer run beneficial effects on economic inequality is presented in feiveson and others ( 2020 ). italics added for emphasis. the 2012 statement noted that the committee would mitigate “ deviations ” of employment from the committee ’ s assessments of its maximum level, suggesting that the committee would actively seek to lower employment if it assessed that employment was above the committee ’ s estimate of its maximum level. in practice, the committee has not conducted policy in this way, but rather has supported continued gains in the labor market. in addition, because real - time estimates are highly uncertain, we no longer refer to estimates of the natural rate of unemployment from the sep in our consensus statement. another reason for dropping this reference is that the unemployment rate does not adequately capture the full range of experience in the labor market. the sep will continue to report fomc participants ’ estimates of the longer - run level of the unemployment rate, as such information remains a useful, albeit highly incomplete, input into our policy deliberations. - 12 case now, we will actively seek to minimize that shortfall by using our tools to support economic growth and job creation. we have also made important changes with regard to the price - stability side of our mandate. our longer - run goal continues to be an inflation rate of 2 percent. our statement emphasizes that our actions to achieve both sides of our dual mandate will be most effective if longer - term inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent. however, if inflation runs below 2 percent following economic downturns but never moves above 2 percent even when the economy is strong, then, over time, inflation will average less than 2 percent. households and businesses will come to expect this result, meaning that inflation expectations would tend to move below our inflation goal and pull realized inflation down. to prevent this outcome and the adverse dynamics that could ensue, our new statement indicates that we will seek to achieve inflation that averages 2 percent over time. therefore, following periods when inflation has been running below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time. in seeking to achieve inflation that averages 2 percent over time, we are not tying ourselves to a particular mathematical formula that defines the average. thus, our approach could be viewed as a flexible form of average inflation targeting. 26 our decisions

would like to call for extending our scope progressively but with ambition. first, climate change, on which we must proceed as swiftly as possible ; second, biodiversity, which is at an intermediary stage ; third, other economically material nature - related risks, including air and water pollution, land use, etc. to the extent they are not already covered as we work on climate and biodiversity. i can only wish for a holistic approach someday ; but we certainly cannot wait until we know everything on all nature - related risks before we act on climate. page 6 sur 13 b. what we don ’ t know yet drawing a parallel with the progress made on climate, we face two significant challenges ahead for biodiversity issues : metrics and scenarios ( “ ipcc type ” ) and macroeconomics and finance ( “ ngfs type ” ). 1. biodiversity metrics and scenarios biodiversity – and even more so nature – is complex and multidimensional : for example, biodiversity measurement cannot be reduced to a single metric like the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and the associated rise in temperature for climate change. we still lack understanding on, and especially awareness of, this phenomenon. thankfully, the ipbes, which we could describe as the ipcc equivalent for biodiversity, is advancing knowledge and raising awareness about biodiversity. it provides landmark assessments of biodiversity loss and ecosystem services, including work on scenarios that we could explore further as we aim for improved risk assessment by the financial sector, just like we did with ipcc scenarios. when attempting to assess risks, we are indeed confronted with numerous conceptual challenges that require adapted tools : the diversity of drivers and impacts ; uncertainty over the time horizon ( which may be relatively short for biodiversity - related risks ), the importance of tail risks and non - linearities associated with tipping points ; the limited substitutability of ecosystem services ( for instance, forests provide flood protection services that can only partially be replaced by costly infrastructure, while ignoring many other services provided by forests ), interdependencies between phenomena ( climate change, biodiversity, land use pollution and fresh water use, as mentioned earlier ), etc. a particular issue relates to the need for data and metrics, which is targeted by several initiatives. these include the global biodiversity score ( gbs ), developed by cdc biodiversite using the globio model of the netherlands environmental assessment agency ( pbl ) – hence a good example of fruitful french - dutch cooperation. this tool assess