On the 80th anniversary of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, we should reflect on what these Bretton Woods institutions have achieved since World War II. In addition to supporting unprecedented levels of global growth and poverty reduction, they have helped address and overcome myriad economic and financial crises. Now, we have an opportunity – and a duty – to take stock of their institutional mandates and ensure that they are equipped to meet the urgent challenges of the twenty-first century.It is widely recognised that the “global commons” issues that transcend national borders (including climate change, pandemics, and migration) present the greatest challenge to the current multilateral architecture. Given the urgent and existential nature of the climate challenge, the imperative for collective action is urgent. Yet progress has been too slow.A new report from the Bretton Woods Committee’s Multilateral Reform Working Group addresses the causes of this impasse and seeks a path forward. We identify “gaps” (in governance, implementation, and accountability) in both the public and the private sector, and we show why only a system-wide approach to reform will suffice.Rejecting the idea that new institutions might be created to fill these gaps, we conclude that the IMF and the World Bank are best placed to play a leadership role, owing to their global membership, financial firepower, and weighted voting structures. The recent G20 Independent Expert Group on Multilateral Development Banks has drawn similar conclusions, as has the Bridgetown Initiative. Without detracting from their existing mandates, the Bretton Woods institutions need to be further empowered.On the public-sector side, the gap in governance stems from the lack of a coordinating function within the global commons, especially when it comes to financial and economic policies to address climate change. To fill this gap, we propose creating ministerial-level decision-making “councils” at both the IMF and the World Bank. Given adequate political heft, these councils would address what is missing in the current architecture. The IMF’s two existing ministerial bodies, the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee, are currently advisory; but they could transition to a decision-making role.The new councils would be more inclusive, giving more voice to middle- and low-income countries (MLICs). Member states would vote proportionally according to their quota share, but they would do so individually, rather than by constituency (as is the case under the current model). This would also enable “coalitions of the willing” to form around specific issues.A second major public-sector gap concerns implementation. Though many efforts to address global challenges are underway, their disparate nature means that the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The Bretton Woods institutions must be empowered to support MLICs as they work toward national goals such as expanding green energy, phasing out coal, accelerating climate-adaptation programmes, and protecting forests.To that end, the IMF can help shape and assess the fiscal and financial frameworks according to which green policies and investments are adopted and implemented in advanced and developing economies. The World Bank can help with financing adaptation efforts, designing energy strategies, and introducing financial instruments to facilitate climate-change mitigation in co-ordination with other multilateral bodies and the private sector. And regional multilateral development banks can expand their role by helping countries de-risk investments in climate-related projects.The third gap concerns accountability and how we measure impact. Accepting the principle that what gets measured gets done, we recommend that the IMF and the World Bank’s existing evaluation arms (working with their peers in partner institutions) start conducting systematic reviews of climate financing and implementation plans.That brings us to the private sector, which also has an indispensable role to play. Most greenhouse-gas emissions emanate from publicly listed corporations and state-owned enterprises, and the bulk of climate financing will need to come from the private sector, including asset managers. The IMF and the World Bank again are uniquely positioned to help governments implement common standards, practices, and instruments, ultimately ensuring that private-sector efforts are aligned with global goals.Filling gaps in the private sector’s current approach will require mandatory global disclosure standards (along the lines of what the International Sustainability Standards Board has proposed) to ensure accurate measures of private entities’ carbon footprints, net-zero goals, and corresponding asset allocations. Mandatory disclosure would provide more accurate price signals to capture the true costs of fossil fuels, as well as foster more public- and private-sector collaboration.The IMF could further incorporate such monitoring in its surveillance work. Already a vocal proponent of carbon taxes, the Fund can offer objective assessments of the global macroeconomic and trade implications of cross-border carbon-adjustment taxes, the potential international sharing of their proceeds, and how such taxes can complement global carbon markets. Moreover, together with the World Bank, the IMF can develop tools to help MLICs respond to these regimes.Throughout their 80-year history, the IMF and the World Bank have demonstrated their ability to adapt to changing global circumstances. In the face of increasingly complex global challenges, both must evolve to capitalise on their respective comparative advantages. In the case of climate change, especially, we believe they are the only global institutions that can mobilise public- and private-sector responses at the necessary pace and scale.To fulfil these augmented roles, both institutions will need additional financial capacity. If they can focus on closing gaps in public- and private-sector governance, implementation, and accountability, they will amplify their own impact and secure future paid-in capital from their shareholders. We hope that all 190 member states meeting in the coming days for the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings will recognise the need to strengthen both bodies. — Project SyndicateJoaquim Levy, a former finance minister of Brazil, is Co-Chair of the Bretton Woods Committee Multilateral Reform Working Group and a former chief financial officer at the World Bank Group.Axel A Weber, Co-Chair of the Bretton Woods Committee Multilateral Reform Working Group, is a former chairman of UBS Group and president of the Deutsche Bundesbank.Siddharth Tiwari, principal author at the Bretton Woods Committee Multilateral Reform Working Group, is a former senior official at the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund.

Huge stretches of coral reef around the world are turning a ghostly white this year amid record warm ocean temperatures.On Monday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the world’s fourth mass global bleaching event is underway — with serious consequences for marine life and for the people and economies that rely on reefs.Here’s how warming affects coral reefs and what the future might hold for these fragile underwater ecosystems.What are corals?Corals are invertebrates that live in colonies. Their calcium carbonate secretions form hard and protective scaffolding that serves as a home to many colourful species of single-celled algae.The two organisms have evolved over millennia to work together, with corals providing shelter to algae, while the algae remove coral waste compounds and deliver energy and oxygen back to their hosts.Why do corals matter?Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor, but have out-sized benefits for marine ecosystems and economies.A quarter of marine life will depend on reefs for shelter, finding food or spawning at some point in their lives and coastal fisheries would struggle without corals.Every year, reefs provide about $2.7tn in goods and services, from tourism to coastal protection, according to a 2020 estimate by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. About $36bn is generated by snorkelling and scuba diving tourists alone.Coral reefs also help coastal communities by forming a protective barrier against storm surges and large waves. This helps to avoid property damage for more than 5mn people worldwide, a 2022 study in the journal Marine Policy found.What is coral bleaching?When water temperatures rise, jewel-toned corals get stressed. They cope by expelling their algae — causing them to turn bone white.Most corals live in shallow waters, where climate-driven warming is most pronounced.Whether a coral becomes heat-stressed depends on how long the high temperatures last, and how much warmer they are than usual.Scientists have found that corals generally begin to bleach when surrounding waters are at least 1C warmer than the maximum average temperature — or the peak of what corals are used to — and persist for four or more weeks.What is going on with ocean temperatures this year?This year has seen an explosive and sustained bout of ocean heat as the planet deals with the effects of both climate change and an El Nino climate pattern, which yields warmer seas.In March, global average sea surface temperature (SST) reached a record monthly high of 21.07C (69.93F), according to the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service.“There’s been a pretty large step change in the global average SST this year,” said Neal Cantin, a coral biologist with the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences. “We’re certainly in a new regime. Corals clearly aren’t keeping up”.As the El Nino weakens, scientists say some of that ocean heat should diminish. But overall ocean warming will continue as climate change intensifies.Do all bleached corals die?Corals can survive a bleaching event if the surrounding waters cool and algae return.Scientists at the Palau International Coral Reef Center estimate that it takes at least nine to 12 years for coral reefs to fully recover from mass bleaching events, according to research published in 2019.Disruptions such as cyclones or pollution can slow the recovery.“Bleaching is like a fever in humans,” said ecologist David Obura, director of Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean East Africa. “We get a fever to resist a disease, and if the disease is not too much, we recover. But if it is too much, we die as a result.”Scientists caution that corals this year have faced harsher and more prolonged high temperatures than ever before.“What is happening is new for us, and to science,” said Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, a coral reef ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “We cannot yet predict how severely stressed corals will do even when they survive the stress event, or how coral recovery will operate.”What happens to dead corals?Dead reefs can still offer shelter to fish or provide a storm barrier over several years for coastal communities.But eventually, these underwater graveyards of calcium carbonate skeletons will erode and break apart.“It might take 10, even 20 years to see these consequences,” Alvarez-Filip said.What can be done to help save reefs?The best chance for coral survival is for the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit climate change.Many scientists think that at just 1.2C of warming above preindustrial level, the world has already passed a key threshold for coral reef survival. They expect between 70% and 90% of the world’s coral reefs will be lost.Scientists and conservationists are scrambling to intervene.Local communities have cleanup programmes to remove litter from the reefs to reduce further stresses. And scientists are breeding corals in labs with the hopes of restoring degraded reefs.However, none of this is likely to work to protect today’s corals from warming waters. Scientists are therefore trying to plan for the future by bringing coral larvae into cryopreservation banks, and breeding corals with more resilient traits.Obura said that while it’s important that scientists investigate such interventions, breeding genetically engineered corals is not the answer to climate change. “We have to be very careful about stating that it’s the solution and that it’s saving corals reefs now,” he said.“Until we reduce carbon emissions, they won’t save coral reefs.” — Reuters