Central banks have been called on to contribute to fighting climate change. This column presents a framework for thinking about the issue and identifies some major trade-offs and choices. It argues that climate should be a major part of risk assessments and that capital ratios could be used in a proactive way by applying favourable regimes to ‘green’ loans and investments. It also suggests that central banks may want to take several climate change-related aspects into account when designing and implementing monetary policies. However, the central bank should retain absolute discretion to interrupt any action if its first-priority objective – price stability – were to be compromised.

In 2020, the UK and the EU will try to strike a post-Brexit deal in financial services. At the SEURF conference in Amsterdam, David Miles and Iain Begg explain to Tim Phillips what's at stake in the negotiations, and who would suffer most if there's no deal.