Ralph Chami

Assistant Director, Western Hemisphere Division, Institute for Capacity Development, IMF

Ralph Chami is an Assistant Director at the IMF. He is currently on sabbatical from the IMF working on tackling the two risks to humanity – climate change and biodiversity loss. He has developed a model for valuing natural capital, including blue and green nature as well as flora and fauna, and a framework for developing the natural capital markets for ecosystem services. He has co-founded two entities working on bringing this new paradigm to life – Rebalance Earth and Blue Green Future that are engaged in realizing the value of the natural world to our well- being and integrating it into our economic system. He has co-authored a number of peer- reviewed publications that value the carbon sequestration service of keystone species such as the Great Whales and Elephants. His work on valuing natural capital has been featured at TED2022, TEDEx2022 Fiesole, UN, and in National Geographic, Financial Times, Washington Post, WEF, among others.                     

During his 24-year career at the IMF, he has been known as an expert on fragile states and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). His book on “Macroeconomic Policy in Fragile State,” was recently published by Oxford University Press.

 

Podcast Guest Appearances

Blue Carbon: Sinking it in The Sea

When most of us think about using nature to remove carbon dioxide from the air, we think of trees. Yet blue carbon, a new name for storing carbon dioxide in coastal and marine ecosystems where it can no longer trap heat in our atmosphere, may have even greater potential. Salt marshes and mangroves have carbon-capturing capacity that may surpass that of terrestrial forests and they are found on every continent except Antarctica.