The World Bank on Monday unveiled $200 billion in climate action investment for 2021-25, doubling its current five-year funding in support for countries to take ambitious climate change action.
The World Bank said the move, coinciding with a UN climate summit meeting of some 200 nations in Poland, represented a “significantly ramped up ambition” to tackle climate change, “sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same”.
The Washington based organisation also said that half of the amount would come directly from the World Bank itself, while the rest would be sourced from other institutions within the group and private capital.
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“The breakdown of the $ 200 billion would comprise “approximately $100 billion in direct finance from the World Bank”, the international financial institution said in a statement.
Around $50 billion would be earmarked for climate adaptation and resilience, according to the World Bank, a recognition that some adverse effects of global warming that can’t be avoided anymore but require a change in practice in tackling the grave issue.
“By ramping up direct adaptation finance to reach around $50 billion over (fiscal) 21-25, the World Bank will, for the first time, give this equal emphasis alongside investments that reduce emissions,” the bank stated.
“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 Group President Jim Yong Kim said.
“We are pushing ourselves to do more and to go faster on climate and we call on the global community to do the same. This is about putting countries and communities in charge of building a safer, more climate-resilient future,” Kim said.
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“If we don’t reduce emissions and build adaptation now, we’ll have 100 million more people living in poverty by 2030,” John Roome, World Bank senior director for climate change, warned.
Roome also said that in the 2018 fiscal year, running from July 2017 to June this year, the World Bank had committed $20.5 billion to climate action, compared with an annual average of $13.5 billion for the 2014-2018 period.
Given the urgency to act in the face of sea level rise, flooding and drought “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 CEO Kristalina Georgieva.
The announcement comes when world leaders are meeting in the Poland city of Katowice at UN talks on tackling climate change and global warming.
(With inputs from agencies)
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