Emmanuel Moulin warns of the economic consequences of heatwaves and climate change, highlighting the risks for growth and the financial sector.
The new governor of the Bank of France, Emmanuel Moulin, recalled on Saturday on France Inter that heatwave episodes “clearly” have a “negative effect on growth” in the medium term, while a heat wave has been hitting French territory for several days. In the short term, however, their effects are “a little ambiguous”, nuanced the governor at the microphone of the program “We don’t stop the eco”, between a negative impact on productivity and an increase in energy consumption via air conditioning.
Extreme weather events threaten the financial sector
Beyond heatwaves, “this is also the case for fires, but also for floods”, argued Emmanuel Moulin, for whom climate change constitutes “a significant risk” for the Banque de France and the European Central Bank (ECB). It weighs “in particular on the financial sector since it impacts bank assets, bank balance sheets and insurance companies”.
Faced with energy shocks and exceptional climatic events, the governor considers it “important to continue to invest in decarbonization and adaptation”. And to insist on the role of the private sector: “The financial sector must contribute. It is not only public money that must be mobilized.”
These warnings come as the Banque de France lowered its growth forecast for 2026, now expecting zero activity in the second quarter. According to the Resource Center for Adaptation to Climate Change, France is experiencing increasingly frequent and intense heat waves, with “four times more heatwave days in the last decade than in the 1980s.” A study by Allianz Trade published in mid-June even puts the loss of national wealth at 210 billion euros by 2030 if the hottest years of the past decade were to repeat themselves.
