Keynote speech by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Climate, Nature and Monetary Policy Conference jointly organised by the ECB, the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise and the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

Frankfurt am Main, 5 May 2026

Introduction

Global warming is no longer a distant threat.^[1] The Copernicus Climate Change Service has confirmed that 2023, 2024 and 2025 were the hottest years in recorded human history (Chart 1, panel a).^[2] The changing climate has also increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events: more severe heatwaves, longer-lasting droughts, heavier rainfall and flooding, and more destructive wildfires, to name just some cases (Chart 1, panel b). The evidence indicates that global warming has accelerated, with recent studies indicating that the planet is heating faster than at any point since the start of the available observational time series in the 1880s.^[3] While climate change…