importantly, this argument is not about weighing secondary objectives, which may provide additional justifications for monetary policy taking into account climate change. it is about protecting the primary objective. of course, central banks would need to be mindful of their effects on market functioning. overweighing green assets in monetary policy portfolios could crowd out other investors, thereby doing more harm than good. and while demand can create its own supply, success would ultimately hinge on green issuance growing substantially as the economy transitions towards its new equilibrium. conclusion let me conclude. the current crisis teaches us that decisive and early action is crucial to tackle global disruptions. it enables us to better imagine the much more dramatic consequences that society could face if we were to fail on our efforts to fight climate change. and while the pandemic can eventually and hopefully be cured, global warming is much harder to reverse, raising the costs of taking no action today. covid - 19 provides a chance to build a greener economy. it is a chance to break the vicious circle of weakening entrepreneurship and the slow diffusion of new and green technologies that have held back productivity growth and prosperity in europe for too long. and it is a chance to build a deeper and greener financial market that reduces the costs of transitioning towards a low - carbon economy. the ecb will be no bystander on this journey. as climate change poses severe risks to price stability, central banks are required, within their traditional mandates, to strengthen their efforts to support a faster transition towards a more sustainable economy. thank you. [ 1 ] see le quere et al. ( 2020 ), “ temporary reduction in daily global co emissions during the covid - 19 forced confinement ”, nature climate change, 18 may 2020. [ 2 ] see un environment programme ( 2019 ), emissions gap report 2019. for the 2 % goal, the respective number would be 2. 7 %, which is still very large. [ 3 ] see carney, m. ( 2015 ), “ breaking the tragedy of the horizon – climate change and financial stability ”, speech at lloyd ’ s of london, london, 29 september. [ 4 ] see samset et al. ( 20200 ), “ delayed emergence of a global temperature response after emission mitigation ”, nature communications, 11. [ 5 ] see bayer, p. and m. aklin ( 2020 ), “ the european union emissions trading system reduced co emissions despite low prices ”, proceedings of

this order of magnitude, and both of those occurred when the unemployment rate was substantially lower than it has been of late. under current law, the amount of federal fiscal restraint will decline in 2014 and then decline further in 2015. at the same time, the sustained contraction in spending and employment by state and local governments appears to be over. the fact that the u. s. economy has continued to grow at around a 2 percent pace in 2013 despite this quite intense fiscal restraint provides evidence to the second key point, which is that the private sector of the economy has largely completed its healing process and is now poised to ramp up its level of activity. key measures of household leverage have declined and are now near the lowest levels they have been in well over a decade. household net worth, expressed as a percent of disposable income, has increased back to its average of the previous decade, reflecting rising equity and home prices and declining debt. recently, banks have eased credit standards somewhat after a prolonged period of tightness. as a result, we are now experiencing a fairly typical cyclical recovery of consumer spending on durable goods. for example, sales of light - weight motor vehicles have increased steadily over the past four years, reaching an annual rate of 15. 7 million in the third quarter of 2013, though sales in september and october have been somewhat below that average. similarly, after five years in which housing production was well below what is consistent with underlying demographic trends and the replacement demand for houses, it now appears that we have worked off the excess supply of housing built up during the boom years of the last decade. housing market activity has begun to recover, and a widely followed national home price index is up 12 percent over the 12 months ending in september. 1 anecdotal reports suggest that this higher - than - expected increase in home prices is due to a relatively low number of homes for sale. due to this shortness of supply, there is reason to expect increases in starts going forward. yet another bright spot on the horizon is the fact that growth prospects among our major trading partners have improved following a few years of lackluster performance which induced a sharp slowing of growth of u. s. exports. in particular, the euro area appears to have emerged from a protracted recession and is experiencing modest but positive growth. to summarize, while growth in 2013 has been disappointing, i believe a good case can be made that the pace of growth will pick up some in 2014 and then