The Reserve Bank has been warned it may have to buy up coal mines and fossil-fuel power stations as part of extraordinary actions to save the economy from climate change-induced financial disaster.

As Australian business leaders grow increasingly worried climate change will hit their bottom lines and the International Monetary Fund warns global warming is now a major financial risk, a new warning issued by the world's top central bank says the RBA could be forced into rescuing the economy and the environment.

Three separate reports released on the same day, coinciding with Australia's worst bushfire season and ongoing political division over environmental policy, point to increasing fears among economic policy leaders that climate change could cause the next global financial breakdown.

The Bank for International Settlements, which acts as the central bank to the world's central banks, overnight told its members they had to start incorporating climate change into their thinking about the stability of the economy.