Just over five years ago, the then Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle gave a speech in Sydney on “climate change and the economy” in which he canvassed the impact of climate change on the way monetary policy works.

Climate events, he said, used to be cycles rather than trends. For example, “droughts have generally been regarded (at least economically) as cyclical events that recur every so often. In contrast, climate change is a trend change”.