Macro-critical but market-centric: the IMF’s half-turn on climate

This article examines the evolving climate policy stance of the International Monetary Fund (hereafter the IMF or the Fund), highlighting an evolution towards greater acceptance of climate policy, as well as tensions between its expanded green rhetoric and the practical constraints of its fiscal mandate. Using document analysis and, for contextualisation, a handful of semi-structured interviews with IMF officials, we argue that, in the post-pandemic period, the Fund has expanded the ambitious climate rhetoric it had adopted shortly before the pandemic. However, we also provide evidence from different types of IMF loan arrangements to show that the translation of these commitments into substantive policy advice into lending operations has remained uneven at best. The IMF’s increasing emphasis on the macro-criticality of climate change has been implemented more systematically under the new, climate-sensitive Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) than under standard loan facilities. While the IMF’s capacity to marry fiscal stability with climate action in operations varies with the type of loan instrument deployed, our analysis suggests that the Fund has layered climate concerns onto an otherwise largely unchanged neoliberal toolbox. As a result, its ‘climate turn’ has been no more than a half-turn, grounded in an embrace of green neoliberalism.