The World Bank would give equal weight to curbing emissions and helping poor countries deal with the “disastrous effects” of a warming world as it steps up investments to tackle climate change in the first half of the 2020s, it said yesterday.
The bank and its two sister organizations plan to double their investments in climate action to about US$200 billion from 2021 to 2025, with a boost in support for efforts to adapt to higher temperatures, wilder weather and rising seas.
The latest figures on climate funding for developing countries show barely a quarter has been going to adaptation, with the bulk backing clean energy and more efficient energy use.
Photo: Reuters
“We must fight the causes, but also adapt to the consequences that are often most dramatic for the world’s poorest people,” World Bank chief executive Kristalina Georgieva said, as leaders flagged rising needs at UN climate talks in Poland.
Of the US$100 billion the World Bank plans to make available in the five years from mid-2020, half would go to adaptation measures, it said.
Those include building more robust homes, schools and infrastructure, preparing farmers for climate shifts, managing water wisely and protecting people’s incomes through social safety nets, Georgieva said.
The World Bank said the money would also improve forecasts, and provide early warning and climate information services for 250 million people in 30 developing countries.
“Climate change is an existential threat to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. These new targets demonstrate how seriously we are taking this issue,” World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.
The bank spent nearly US$21 billion from 2014 to this year on adaptation, which accounted for just over 40 percent of the climate benefits generated by its funding overall.
Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said the World Bank’s pledge to use half its climate finance to find solutions to deal with changing weather patterns was “important.”
“Climate change is already having a disastrous impact on people right around the world and we are nearing the point of no return,” Ban said. “So we must take bold action to adapt to the reality of the threat facing us all.”
The remaining US$100 billion in promised World Bank Group funding is to come from the International Finance Corp, which works with the private sector, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, as well as private capital the group raises.
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