The World Bank Group said that it will spend $200 billion over five years to help countries fight climate change. This is double current 5-year investments that the Bank makes and significantly boosts support for adaptation and recognizing that mounting climate change impacts lives and livelihoods.
“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, investing and mobilizing $200 billion over five years to combat climate change,” World Bank’s Group President, Jim Yong Kim said in a statement released at the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP 24) summit on Monday.
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In key sectors, efforts will include:
- In Energy: Support the generation, integration, and enabling infrastructure for 36 GW of renewable energy and support 1.5 million GWh equivalent of energy savings through efficiency improvement;
- In Cities: Help 100 cities achieve low-carbon and resilient urban planning and transit-oriented development;
- In Food and Land-Use: Increase integrated landscape management in up to 50 countries, covering up to120 million hectares of forests.
“People are losing their lives and livelihoods because of the disastrous effects of climate change. We must fight the causes, but also adapt to the consequences that are often most dramatic for the world’s poorest people,” said World Bank Chief Executive Officer, Kristalina Georgieva.
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Source of Financing and its end use
- Of the $200 billion approximately $100 billion is direct finance from the World Bank (IBRD/IDA),
- Another $100 billion is a combination of direct finance from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and private capital mobilized by the World Bank Group.
- Half of it will go to building better adapted homes, schools and infrastructure, and invest in climate smart agriculture, sustainable water management and responsive social safety nets.
- The new financing will ensure that adaptation is undertaken in a systematic fashion,
- World Bank will develop a new rating system to track and incentivize global progress.
- Actions will include supporting higher-quality forecasts, early warning systems and climate information services to better prepare 250 million people in 30 developing countries for climate risks.
- Build more climate-responsive social protection systems in 40 countries, and finance climate smart agriculture investments in 20 countries.
- The new targets build on the World Bank Group’s 2016 Climate Change Action Plan. In 2018, the World Bank Group provided a record-breaking $20.5 billion in finance for climate action: doubling delivery from the year before the Paris Agreement and meeting its 2020 target two years ahead of schedule.
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