A new, monthly newsletter from Sarah Bloom Raskin and Kristina Karlsson profiling essential climate literature for Federal Reserve staff, leadership, and all other interested parties.
The climate crisis advances with ferocious velocity, rocking our economy from coast to coast. Every branch of our federal government is now complicit in climate denialism, and the new administration’s “solution” to climate change is simply to ban the words in official communications.
The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, its rapid dismantling of environmental enforcement, its “drill baby drill” mantra and deference to Big Oil—all of this will accelerate the climate crisis and the massive economic damage it is inflicting on our society.
This political decision to reverse the policy progress made during the Biden administration is predictable enough, but the Federal Reserve Board’s participation in this willful indifference represents a stunning abdication of mandated responsibilities.
Since November 2024, the Fed has withdrawn from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and opposed the Basel Committee’s climate disclosure decision. On several occasions, Chair Jerome Powell has stated that he does not see the Fed as having a role in conducting “climate policy,” invoking the apolitical nature of the Fed’s mandate as cover for inaction.
But we don’t think that studying and mitigating climate-driven risks to the economy is “political” in the partisan sense. It’s fact, it’s duty, and it’s well within the Fed’s mandate to control inflation and manage financial instability. The literature interrogating, modeling, and quantifying these risks is growing. The Fed can say what it wants, but is statutorily required to pay attention.
At such a critical juncture, when climate ignorance will have dangerous consequences, we’ve decided to shed light. We are launching a readable and concise newsletter, Fed Lit, to boost the most compelling new climate macroeconomic research to the top of your inbox. You might say it’s a reading list for the Federal Reserve, Fed staff, and anyone else interested in macroeconomic performance, as well as the constellation of thinkers and doers who advocate, organize, and comment on climate and economic well-being.
And for you, our soon-to-be circle of readers and friends, we will highlight a different research article each month. We’ll summarize the findings, describe the challenges presented, and give you our thoughts.
We want this to help us all move past the doom paralysis, and toward energetic, collective action.
We promise to make our analysis pithy, accessible, and fair. Our aim is to share with you the growing and vibrant intellectual community that bridges the worlds of central banking and climate science. We will showcase new voices and hope to inspire questions and action. We want readers to get involved—to comment on the material and suggest additional papers for us to read. And we’ll do our best to respond. In some cases, we’ll invite authors into conversation to get our questions answered.
We’ll start with our first issue next week, and then you can expect to hear from us monthly. We hope you’ll join us, and share with your friends, colleagues, and maybe even that one central banker who you see standing in the checkout aisle, contemplating what might be driving the rising price of coffee and olive oil . . . Everyone deserves a great climate reading list, particularly as it pertains to macroeconomic performance.
With delightful anticipation,
Sarah and Kris