The World Bank Group announced a major new set of climate targets for 2021-2025, doubling its current 5-year investments to around $200 billion in support for countries to take ambitious climate action. The new plan significantly boosts support for adaptation and resilience, recognizing mounting climate change impacts on lives and livelihoods, especially in the world’s poorest countries. The plan also represents significantly ramped up ambition from the World Bank Group, sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same.
“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.”
The $200 billion across the Group is made up of approximately $100 billion in direct finance from the World Bank (IBRD/IDA), and approximately $100 billion of combined direct finance from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and private capital mobilized by the World Bank Group.
A key priority is boosting support for climate adaptation, recognizing that millions of people across the world are already facing the severe consequences of more extreme weather events. By ramping up direct adaptation finance to reach around $50 billion, the World Bank will, for the first time, give this equal emphasis alongside investments that reduce emissions.
The new financing will ensure that adaptation is undertaken in a systematic fashion, and the 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. In addition, the expected investments will build more climate-responsive social protection systems in 40 countries, and finance climate-smart agriculture investments in 20 countries.
The World Bank Group will continue to integrate climate considerations into its work, including screening projects for climate risks and building in appropriate risk mitigation measures, disclosing both gross and net greenhouse gas emissions, and applying a shadow carbon price for all material investments.
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.
Read and download 2025 Targets to Step Up Climate Action.
Original source: World Bank
Published on 2 December 2018
