ESG and Of Interest News
Understanding Stablecoins
December 4, 2025-Stablecoins, a type of crypto asset, have seen significant growth and attention recently. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of stablecoins. It discusses market developments, use cases, potential benefits, associated risks, and the evolving international regulatory landscape. Stablecoin issuance has doubled over the past two years, driven by their use in crypto trades.
The future demand for stablecoins could arise from other use cases supported by enabling legal and regulatory frameworks. Stablecoins are part of the broader interest in asset tokenization. Stablecoins offer several potential benefits. Through tokenization, they could increase efficiency in payments through increased competition. Stablecoins also carry significant risks related to macro-financial stability, operational efficiency, financial integrity, and legal certainty. Stablecoins may contribute to currency substitution, increase capital flow volatility. These risks could be more pronounced in countries experiencing high inflation, weaker institutions, or diminished confidence in the domestic monetary framework. The regulatory landscape for stablecoins is evolving.
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Source: imf.org
International Debt Report 2025: When relief isn’t enough-LMICs face their largest external debt outflows in 50 years
December 3, 2025--A paradox is unfolding across low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Inflation is receding and the punishing interest rates of recent years are finally easing, offering some relief. International market bonds issuances are gradually returning-at more sustainable prices -providing countries with much needed financing that helps reduce the risk of default and temporarily eases fiscal strains.
Yet for most LMICs, these are modest consolations - and far from sufficient to offset the profound setbacks of this decade. After all, LMICs paid out $741 billion more in principal and interest on their external debt between 2022 and 2024 than they received in new financing-the largest amount in at least 50 years.
The 2025 edition of the Debt Report (IDR), the World Bank's flagship annual publication on debt, reveals that the growth of LMICs' external debt stock slowed significantly in 2024, increasing just 1.1 percent to reach US$8.9 trillion. However, there's more to this story than the headline number suggests.
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Source: worldbank.org
Making the Green Transition Work for People and the Economy
November 28, 2025-As the global economy shifts under mounting inflation,fractured supply chains and rising inequality,the pace of climate action faces new pressures. The World Economic Forum's Executive Opinion Survey of 11,000 businesses found that 37% consider higher energy and commodity costs as barriers to competitive green business models,while more than half worry about affordability for consumers-warning that without economic feasibility and social alignment,climate ambition may falter.
Written by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with McKinsey & Company,Making the Green Transition Work for People and the Economy explores how to align climate action with positive socioeconomic outcomes. It presents a framework for integrating socioeconomic factors into corporate transition plans and identifies six archetypes of national transition pathways,reflecting diverse challenges and opportunities across economies.
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Source: WEF (World Economic Forum)
Visualizing How Much Gold Is Left to Mine on Earth
November 5, 2025-Key Takeaways
Roughly 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined, with about 64,000 tonnes of reserves left underground.
Gold prices have surged more than 50% in 2025 amid global economic uncertainty and rising investor demand.
Gold's scarcity is one reason it remains a sought-after safe haven. In 2025, the metal has seen its strongest rally in years, climbing over 50% as global investors react to uncertainty in the world economy.
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Source: elements.visualcapitalist.com
UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025
November 4, 2025-UNEP's Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target finds that available new climate pledges under the Paris Agreement have only slightly lowered global temperature rise over the course of this century, leaving the world heading for a serious escalation of climate risks and damages.
What's new in this year's report?
The sixteenth edition of the Emissions Gap Report finds that global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are now 2.3-2.5°C, while those based on current policies are 2.8°C. This compares to 2.6-2.8°C and 3.1°C in last year's report.
However, methodological updates account for 0.1°C of the improvement, and the upcoming withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement will cancel another 0.1°C, meaning that the new NDCs themselves have barely moved the needle. Nations remain far from meeting the Paris Agreement goal to limit warming to well-below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to stay below 1.5°C.
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Source: unep.org
Explainer: Five Megatrends Shaping the Rise of Nonbank Finance
September 27, 2025--Half of all financial assets worldwide are now held and intermediated by companies that are not classified and regulated as banks
The global financial crisis of 2008 froze the financial system. Banks pulled back credit, families tightened their belts and companies laid off workers. It was a frightening time for everyone, and an extremely difficult moment for the financial services industry.
Today, the landscape of finance is quite different. Different types of investors and firms are providing businesses, consumers and governments with credit and liquidity. More than a billion more people have access to credit thanks largely to newer tech-based lenders. Families also have more options to finance purchases and to diversify retirement portfolios. Equity, fixed income, and derivatives markets have all seen strong growth.
But these developments have not been driven by banks. Instead, it is "nonbank" financial institutions that have stepped up, increasing their share of global credit and finance from 43 percent during the 2008 crisis to nearly 50 percent by 2023, our most recent data show.
This is a watershed moment: half of all financial services worldwide are now offered by companies that are not classified and regulated as banks.
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Source: IMF.org
The OECD Index of Digital Trade Integration and Openness (INDIGO)
September 12, 2025-Policy Trends up to 2025
Key messages
Global discussions on digital trade are in their early stages but are rapidly gaining momentum. The world economy is just 8.5% of the way towards what could be considered full global digital trade integration and openness. Recent years have seen an increase in the diversity of the issues covered in international discussions,largely due to digital trade provisions in trade agreements and digital economy agreements.
While bilateral digital trade discussions are expanding,they only represent 10% of existing digital trade integration and openness. At present,global digital trade integration and openness remains largely driven by WTO initiatives which incorporate more countries.
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Source: oecd.org
Multilateral development banks hit record $137 billion in climate finance, driving sustainable development worldwide
September 9, 2025-New report shows climate finance by multilateral development banks rose 10% in 2024 compared with previous year.
MDBs' climate finance for low- and middle-income economies increased 14% to more than $85 billion.
Multilateral development banks (MDBs) delivered a record $137 billion in global climate finance last year-a 10% increase that underscores the growing scale of international climate investment. The majority of this funding flowed to low-and middle-income economies, according to a report published today by the European Investment Bank (EIB) with participation from other MDBs, including the African Development Bank Group.
In addition, MDBs mobilized $134 billion in private finance for climate action in 2024, a 33% increase from the year earlier, according to 2024 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks' Climate Finance.
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Source: afdb.org
Stablecoins, Tokens, and Global Dominance
September 9, 2025-Technology is reshaping capital flows and currency dominance; data integrity is essential for financial stability
Technology is poised to shake up the international monetary and financial system. How that happens depends on whether technologies are shaped by the public sector or the private sector sets standards first. Also at play are regulations, international cooperation, and the resilience of new technologies to cyber risk.
The effects on capital flows are hard to assess, but they could have a surprisingly large impact on fiscal accounts, geoeconomic fragmentation, exchange rate volatility, and the internationalization of major currencies.
Stablecoins are one of the most relevant innovations, increasingly embraced amid US introduction of a legal framework designed to boost adoption and solidify the dollar's role as the main international currency. Tokenization plays a role as well. It is the process of recording claims on assets that exist on a traditional ledger-or native assets (that is, only issued digitally)-on a programmable platform, where they can be transferred (Agur and others 2025).
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Source: imf.org
Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds
August 28, 2025--Scientists say 'shocking' discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event,a study has concluded,making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic,where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
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Source: theguardian.com
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