An evidence map of 1,050 mentions of weather, climate, and nature-related terms across central bank speeches, meeting minutes and statements.
Two distinct shocks are now hitting the same outcome - food prices and supply. The dataset shows central banks have spent five years building the language for one of them (drought). The other one (the Iran war) has hijacked the discourse in three months.
Drought is the #1 term in the entire dataset (223 mentions, 21% of the corpus). It peaked in 2022 (63 mentions) when historic dry spells gripped Europe, the Horn of Africa, and parts of South America at once. ECB research finds regional output stays suppressed ~3pp for four years after a drought or flood - which is why central banks now treat it as a monetary-policy-relevant supply shock rather than a passing weather event.
2026 YTD looks quiet (7 mentions), but the seasonal pattern says that's about to change: independent forecasters call for a "major drought" across Europe and SW Russia in summer 2026, driven by emerging El Niño and Mediterranean marine heatwaves. India's IMD has issued its first below-normal monsoon forecast since 2015 (92% LPA).
Since joint US-Israeli strikes on 28 February 2026 and the resulting Strait of Hormuz disruption, central bank language has pivoted hard. Energy-shock terms (Energy Price Spikes + Terms of Trade Shock + Supply-Side Shocks) went from 1 mention in Jan–May 2025 to 4 in the same period of 2026. The ECB's March projections revised 2026 inflation up to 2.6% because of it.
And it's not just oil. The Hormuz disruption is now hitting one-third of global fertilizer trade, with the UN FAO warning of "a new wave of inflation" as fertiliser supplies tighten ahead of planting season. The WFP estimates 45 million more people could face acute food shortages if the conflict drags into mid-year.
Drought constrains harvests in the months ahead. The Iran war is constraining fertiliser, energy and shipping now - meaning the inputs for those same harvests. As FoodNavigator put it in April 2026: the worst case is "disruption to fertiliser supplies and agricultural inputs today constrain harvests months from now, just as energy-driven cost inflation pushes food prices further out of reach."
For central banks, this is two negative supply shocks stacking - one chronic, one acute - with no easy monetary response. The BIS notes droughts cause "more persistent negative effects on output than other types of extreme events", especially where primary-sector exposure is high. Layer the Hormuz disruption on top and you get the policy dilemma defining 2026: tighten against inflation, or ease against the growth hit. The dataset shows central banks have chosen a third path - scenario analysis, the methodology of the year (9 YTD mentions, 20% of all 2026 mentions).
Early 2026 is dominated by responses to the Iran war, its subsequent energy shocks and scenario analysis (the "what-if" projections published alongside the main forecast). The seasonal terms - drought, monsoon - haven't shown up yet because their seasons haven't started.
Jan–May only · scenario analysis dominates ECB output
Jan–May 2025 → Jan–May 2026 · what's rising and falling
"Energy Price Spikes," "Terms of Trade Shock" and "Supply-Side Shocks" together appeared in 2026 YTD 4 times - versus 1 in the same period of 2025. The ECB's March meeting accounts and Lagarde's 6 May speech explicitly frame the Middle East conflict as a "new energy shock", and the March projections revised 2026 inflation up to 2.6% because of it.
Expect this category to be the dominant macro lens for the rest of 2026 - possibly overtaking pure-physical-event language for the first time since 2022.
Already 9 mentions YTD, vs 9 in Jan–May 2025. The ECB alone accounts for 22 of 44 2026 mentions, with scenario analysis at the centre of its output. The March meeting accounts describe scenarios as "a key device for communication in an environment of heightened uncertainty".
Prediction: every major central bank publishing projections in H2 2026 will accompany them with explicit alternative scenarios - this is now methodological orthodoxy, not novelty.
The Bank of Mauritius alone has 4 mentions YTD - its February "Workshop on Supervision of Climate Risks" already integrates on-site climate examinations and the first banking-sector scenario analysis. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has 7 mentions. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority's April speech describes "two rounds of climate risk stress testing" already complete.
Prediction: by year-end, the most innovative climate-supervisory communication will come from mid-sized EM regulators, not the ECB or Fed. The frontier has moved.
Monsoon mentions are running cold in 2026 YTD (1 vs 5 in Jan–May 2025) - but that's because the season hasn't started. The IMD's first 2026 forecast calls for 92% of LPA - the first below-normal forecast since 2015, with weak La Niña transitioning to neutral and El Niño development likely during the monsoon season itself.
Prediction: RBI MPC minutes from June, August and October 2026 will substantially raise their monsoon and food-inflation language - pushing total monsoon mentions for 2026 well above 2025's 28.
Independent forecasters call for a "major drought" across Europe and Southwest Russia in summer 2026, driven by emerging El Niño, the North Atlantic warm hole, and Mediterranean/Norwegian marine heatwaves. The ECB's own 2025 research has already quantified that drought regions see output suppressed ~3pp for four years.
Prediction: ECB and BoE communication will reintroduce drought language by Q3, likely paired with food-inflation revisions. This would reverse the YTD drop (drought: 12 → 7 same-period) by year-end.
Cyclone is the breakout term of 2026 YTD: 0 mentions Jan–May 2025 → 8 mentions Jan–May 2026. So far it's concentrated in Mauritius and Australia. But a likely active Atlantic hurricane season and continued Indo-Pacific tropical activity should pull more banks in.
Prediction: expect cyclone/hurricane/typhoon mentions from at least 3 new central banks in H2 2026 - particularly Caribbean, US, and Asian jurisdictions. This is the term most likely to top 2025's totals.
Transition risk hit 1 mention YTD (vs 25 at 2021 peak). Nature-related financial risk has held steady at 2 mentions YTD - small but persistent - and is the framing the ECB, BoE and MAS have all picked up. Pure-decarbonisation language has not recovered from the 2022–2023 inflation-shock detour.
Prediction: 2026 ends with transition-risk mentions in single digits and nature-related risk language continuing to broaden across 5+ banks - completing the rebrand of forward-looking climate work.
The defining feature of 2026 YTD is that climate/weather terms appear inside energy, inflation, and supply-side discussions - not in dedicated climate speeches. The National Bank of Slovakia's March speech is typical: "more frequent supply-side shocks - from energy spikes to climate events - mean that inflation will likely be more volatile in the future. This is the New Normal."
Prediction: as the 2026 monsoon and hurricane seasons hit, expect the minutes/statements share to climb back toward 2024–2025 levels (~36–38%) and bring climate language inside formal MPC decisions. The integration is the story.
Sample bias: the corpus is English-skewed and may understate non-English central banks. Event dependence: a benign hurricane season or rapid Middle East de-escalation would flatten several predictions. Strategy reviews: if the ECB or Fed reopen climate-strategy reviews, transition-risk language could rebound sharply.
The strongest predictions are P1–P3 (already visible in YTD data). P4–P6 depend on physical events. P7–P8 are structural and slower-moving.
Mentions by country of the issuing central bank. India, the Euro Area, the US, Singapore and Australia lead - but emerging-market banks in monsoon and drought-prone economies show outsized engagement relative to their footprint.
Hover any country for detail · Euro Area shown as a single jurisdiction (ECB)
2026 is partial year-to-date (data through 18 May 2026). The dominant lens has shifted from transition risk and forward-looking scenario analysis (2021–2022) toward concrete physical events and their macro / inflation consequences (2022–2025).
Stacked annual counts - physical events dominate 2022 onward
Drought, monsoon, scenario analysis lead
Volume peaked 2023; 2026 is partial YTD
Physical acute events - drought, monsoon, flood, hurricanes, cyclones - account for 62% of all mentions. Risk-framework language (scenario analysis, NGFS, supervisory expectations) is the second-largest category and is concentrated in advanced economies.
Total mentions, all banks combined
Aggregated categories of concern
Stacked bars reveal each bank's emphasis - physical risk for EM, risk frameworks for AE supervisors
Quantitative patterns from the dataset, contextualised with credible external reporting on the events they reference.
Drought peaked in 2022 (63 mentions) when historic dry spells gripped Europe, the Horn of Africa, and parts of South America simultaneously. ECB research found regional output remains depressed by ~3 percentage points four years after a drought or flood - explaining why central banks now treat it as a monetary-policy-relevant supply shock rather than a passing weather story.
DATA · 223 mentions · peak 2022The Reserve Bank of India is now the most prolific bank in the dataset. In a 2024 RBI Bulletin, deputy governor Patra argued climate change has made Indian food inflation "endemic", with 57% of the prior 48 months recording food inflation above 6%. Monsoon outcomes drive policy decisions: the RBI's June 2024 MPC explicitly held rates citing food price vigilance and "assuming a normal monsoon."
DATA · RBI · 234 mentions · 22.3% of datasetTransition-risk mentions peaked in 2021 (25) then collapsed to 1–5 per year. Macro/inflation-impact language climbed sharply between 2020 and 2023 (3 → 22). The pattern matches the "interlocking crises" thesis that COVID, the inflation shock and Ukraine reshaped central-bank climate engagement - pulling attention from long-horizon green finance toward immediate supply shocks.
DATA · transition 2021: 25 → 2024: 3The ECB (149 mentions), MAS (113) and BoE (42) concentrate in scenario analysis, NGFS, supervisory expectations and stress testing. The RBI, State Bank of Pakistan (47 - heavy on flood after the 2022 catastrophe), Bank of Thailand, Banco de México and Reserve Bank of Australia concentrate in concrete events - monsoon, flood, drought, terms-of-trade shocks. Recent research confirms most central banks still treat extreme weather as "exogenous shocks" in policy models - but the EM cohort is closer to treating them as endogenous.
DATA · top 5 AE banks vs top 5 EM banksThe jump reflects a real-world clustering of major flood events - and central banks responding in real time. Floods and droughts together pulled the "physical / acute" category to its highest single-year share of the discourse. The BIS notes droughts in particular cause "more persistent negative effects on economic output than other types of extreme events", especially where hydropower or primary-sector exposure is high - a structural reason the language is sticking.
DATA · flood 2024: 9 → 2025: 48Japan, China and Brazil - three of the world's largest economies and three with material climate exposure - register barely or not at all in this corpus. This may reflect the source mix (English-language documents, specific report types) but also a genuine difference in how prominently weather/climate language appears in their public monetary-policy communication, relative to the ECB's explicit climate strategy or the RBI's monsoon-driven policy framework.
DATA · 4+ G20-relevant banks <5 mentions eachFilter the underlying sentences. Each is a verbatim excerpt from a central-bank speech, meeting minute or statement.