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<img alt=”” src=”http://planetark.org/images/wefull/65640.jpeg” style=”width: 450px; height: 313px; ” /></p>
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<span style=”font-size: 10px; “><em>International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde at Center for Global Development, Washington DC.</em></span></p>
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not known as a bastion of progressive thinking. But last month, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde used a speech at the <a href=”http://www.cgdev.org” target=”_blank”>Center for Global Development</a> to begin an IMF-housed discussion on the use of macroeconomic policy to address what she explained as the interconnected economic, environmental, and social crises. The IMF has since released an e-book titled <a href=”http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/books/2012/climate/climate.pdf” target=”_blank”><em>Fiscal Policy to Mitigate Climate Change</em></a> that makes the policy argument for different carbon tax and cap-and-trade systems. It also sent Lagarde to the Rio+20 summit as the first IMF head to attend an environmental summit.</p>
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Capital Institute salutes this great first step by the IMF and looks forward to further progress.</p>