This paper presents GMMET, the Global Macroeconomic Model for the Energy Transition, and provides documentation of the model structure, data sources and model properties. GMMET is a large-scale, dynamic, non-linear, microfounded multicountry model whose purpose is to analyze the short- and medium-term macroeconomic impact of curbing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The model provides a detailed description of GHG-emitting activities (related to both fossil fuel and non-fossil-fuel processes) and their interaction with the rest of the economy. To better capture real world obstacles of the energy transition, GMMET features a granular modelling of electricity generation (capturing the intermittency of renewables), transportation (capturing network externalities between charging stations and electric vehicle adoption), and fossil fuel mining (replicating estimated supply elasticities at various time horizons). The model also features a rich set of policy tools for the energy transition, including taxation of GHG emissions, various subsidies, and regulations.

Managing the climate transition presents policymakers with a tradeoff between achieving climate goals, fiscal sustainability, and political feasibility, which calls for a fiscal balancing act with the right mix of policies. This paper develops a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the fiscal impacts of various climate policy packages aimed at reaching net zero emissions by mid-century. Our simulations show that relying primarily on spending measures to deliver on climate ambitions will be costly, possibly raising debt by 45-50 percent of GDP by 2050. However, a balanced mix of carbon-pricing and spending-based policies can deliver on net zero with a much smaller fiscal cost, limiting the increase in public debt to 10-15 percent of GDP by 2050. Carbon pricing is central not only as an effective tool for emissions reduction but also as a revenue source. Delaying carbon pricing action could increase costs, especially if less effective measures are scaled up to meet climate targets. Technology spillovers can reduce the costs but bottlenecks in green investment could unwind the gains and slow the transition.

The U.S. economy has proven resilient in the face of the significant tightening of both fiscal and monetary policy in 2022. Consumer demand has held up particularly well, boosted initially by a drawdown of pent-up savings and, more recently, by solid growth in real disposable incomes. Policy restraint is expected to continue to slow the economy in 2023 with a modest pick-up in momentum later in 2024. Unemployment is expected to rise slowly to close to 41⁄2 percent by end-2024.

The IMF’s Macroeconomic Model for the Energy Transition (GMMET) is applied to assess the climate-related measures in the U.S. 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Explicitly accouting for corporate income tax funding and assuming no permitting delays for energy-related investment, the measures are expected to cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by 710 MMT by 2030, predominantly driven by more electricity generation from renewables combined with a rising share of electric vehicles. Aggregate output and inflation are not impacted significantly, while the fiscal costs amount to about $700 billion through 2030 (another $120 billion of fixed grants and loans are not modelled). In the presence of investment delays from permitting, emission cuts would be reduced by about a third. We also show that the IRA leaves room for sizable additional emission abatement at very low costs; by targeting electricity generation from coal and methane emissions from oil and gas industries.

Addressing climate change will entail major challenges for economic growth, employment, inflation, and public finances. Mitigating the impact of global warming will yield benefits and costs that are yet to be quantified and defined for the global economy and for nations, workers, households, and companies. The Green Frontier: Assessing the Economic Implications of Climate Action offers research originally presented at a major conference at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in June 2023 in Washington, DC, organized to shed light on this still unexplored field of study and recommend policies for the future.

The world has witnessed transformational changes in recent years, not the least in technical parlance. With the massive amount of new and interdisciplinary concepts, the need has emerged to standardize and communicate emerging technical terms in languages other than English. The language Services Division of the IMF’s Corporate Services and Facilities Department prepared this thematic bulletin as a contribution to the international effort of linguists and translation experts, for the benefit of topical experts, member countries, professional translators and interpreters, and the general public. It is produced on the occasion of the 2023 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Global economic activity is experiencing a broad-based and sharper-than-expected slowdown, with inflation higher than seen in several decades. The cost-of-living crisis, tightening financial conditions in most regions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic all weigh heavily on the outlook. Global growth is forecast to slow from 6.0 percent in 2021 to 3.2 percent in 2022 and 2.7 percent in 2023. This is the weakest growth profile since 2001 except for the global financial crisis and the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global inflation is forecast to rise from 4.7 percent in 2021 to 8.8 percent in 2022 but to decline to 6.5 percent in 2023 and to 4.1 percent by 2024. Monetary policy should stay the course to restore price stability, and fiscal policy should aim to alleviate the cost-of-living pressures while maintaining a sufficiently tight stance aligned with monetary policy. Structural reforms can further support the fight against inflation by improving productivity and easing supply constraints, while multilateral cooperation is necessary for fast-tracking the green energy transition and preventing fragmentation.