Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at Norges Bank’s Climate Conference in Oslo, Norway

Oslo, 21 October 2025

It is a pleasure to be at Norges Bank again.

When I last visited the central bank, back in the summer of 2016, the world – and Europe – were in a very different place.

The Paris Agreement, the international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was not yet one year old, and still enjoyed strong support among all major powers.

A benign geopolitical environment also blurred the risks of Europe’s growing energy dependencies. Nord Stream-2, a new gas pipeline project, had recently been announced, promising to deliver cheap Russian gas to the continent.

Since then, our world has changed dramatically.

We are witnessing a growing denial of the climate crisis and a backlash against green initiatives. The war in Ukraine further exposed Europe’s energy dependencies as strategic vulnerabilities, driving up gas prices after the cut-off of the Russian…