The Expected Effects of Climate Change on Colombia’s Current Account

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The series Working Papers on Economics is published by the Office for Economic Studies at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.

AUTHOR OR EDITOR
Agudelo-Rivera, Camila
Granger-Castaño, Clark
Sánchez-Jabba, Andrés Mauricio

The series Borradores de Economía (Working Papers on Economics) contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the work by researchers from the institution. On multiple occasions, these works have been the result of collaborative work with individuals from other national or international institutions. This series is indexed at Research Papers in Economics (RePEc). The opinions contained in this document are the sole responsibility of the author and do not commit Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.

Publication Date:
Monday, 31 October 2022

Abstract

This study analyzes the expected effects of climate change on Colombia’s current account. To this end, we present a literature review that outlines how climate-related risks could impact the balance of payments, complemented with an analysis that illustrates how the 2014-2015 oil shock affected the country's external sector. Subsequently, we show a projection of the current account balance through 2050 under different climate scenarios in order to establish whether the incidence of these risks would affect the country’s long-run current account. Our results indicate that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 could widen the current account deficit, relative to a continuation of current climate policies, by an amount ranging between 2.6% and 4.6% of GDP.