World Bank promises $200 bn in 2021-25 climate cash

The World Bank on Monday unveiled $200 billion in climate action investment for 2021-25, adding this amounts to a doubling of its current five-year funding.

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."

Developed countries are committed to lifting combined annual public and private spending to $100 billion in developing countries by 2020 to fight the impact of climate change -- up from 48.5 billion in 2016 and 56.7 billion last year, according to latest OECD data.

Southern hemisphere countries fighting the impact of warming temperatures are nonetheless pushing northern counterparts for firmer commitments.

In a statement, the World Bank said the breakdown of the $200 billion would comprise "approximately $100 billion in direct finance from the World Bank."

Around one third of the remaining funding will come from two World Bank Group agencies with the rest private capital "mobilised by the World Bank Group."

"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.

"And we also know that the less we address this issue proactively just in three regions -- Africa, South Asia and Latin America -- we'll have 133 million climate migrants," Roome told AFP.

- 'Fight the causes' -

The bank's financing package amounts to "about 40 billion a year, but the direct (finance) is 27 billion per year on average," Roome said.

He added 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.

Roome said the money now being earmarked amounted to "about 35 percent" of the World Bank Group's total financing.

Much of the climate action financing is being set aside for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, notably through development of renewable energy strategies.

However, the World Bank stated that "a key priority is boosting support for climate adaptation," given the millions of people already battling the consequences of extreme weather.

"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.

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.

By stepping up financial aid to developing countries worst affected, Georgieva said the bank was committed to adapting infrastructure while investing in "climate smart agriculture, sustainable water management and responsive social safety nets" as well as early response networks.

"Even if we can keep global warming down to 2 degrees Celsius we know you're gonna need a significant amount of adaptation in places like Chad, Mozambique or Bangladesh," said Roome.

The countries whose representatives are meeting at the UN climate summit which opened Sunday in the Polish city of Katowice are seeking to make good on commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

That agreement saw countries commit to limiting global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible.

Act now or risk disaster, nations told at UN climate summit
Katowice, Poland (AFP) Dec 2, 2018 - After the starkest warnings yet of the catastrophic threat posed by climate change, nations gathered in Poland on Sunday to chart a way for mankind to avert runaway global warming.

The COP24 climate summit comes at a crucial juncture in the battle to rein in the effects of our heating planet.

The smaller, poorer nations that will bare the devastating brunt of climate change are pushing for richer states to make good on the promises they made in the 2015 Paris agreement.

Three years ago countries committed to limit global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible.

But with only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, the world has already seen a crescendo of deadly wildfires, heatwaves and hurricanes made more destructive by rising seas.

UN General Assembly president Maria Espinosa told AFP that mankind was "in danger of disappearing" if climate change was allowed to progress at its current rate.

"We need to act urgently, and with audacity. Be ambitious, but also responsible for the future generations," she added.

In a rare intervention, presidents of previous UN climate summits issued a joint statement as the talks got under way, calling on states to take "decisive action... to tackle these urgent threats".

"The impacts of climate change are increasingly hard to ignore," said the statement, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. "We require deep transformations of our economies and societies."

At the COP24 climate talks, nations must agree to a rulebook palatable to all 183 states who have ratified the Paris deal.

The road to a final rulebook is far from smooth: the dust is still settling from US President Donald Trump's decision to ditch the Paris accord.

G20 leaders on Saturday wrapped up their summit by declaring the Paris Agreement "irreversible".

But it said the United States "reiterates its decision to withdraw" from the landmark accord.

The UN negotiations got off to a chaotic start in the Polish mining city of Katowice Sunday, with the opening session delayed nearly three hours by a series of last-ditch submissions.

A string of major climate reports have cast doubt over the entire process, suggesting the Paris goals fall well short of what is needed.

- Data doesn't lie -

Just last week, the UN's environment programme said the voluntary national contributions agreed in Paris would have to triple if the world was to cap global warming below 2C.

For 1.5C, they must increase fivefold.

While the data are clear, a global political consensus over how to tackle climate change remains elusive.

"Katowice may show us if there will be any domino effect" following the US withdrawal, said Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a main architect of the Paris deal.

Brazil's strongman president-elect Jair Bolsonaro, for one, has promised to follow the American lead during his campaign.

Many countries are already dealing with the droughts, higher seas and catastrophic storms climate change is exacerbating.

"A failure to act now risks pushing us beyond a point of no return with catastrophic consequences for life as we know it," said Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, of the UN talks.

A key issue up for debate is how the fight against climate change is funded, with developed and developing nations still world's apart in their demands.

Poorer nations argue that rich countries, which are responsible for the vast majority of historic carbon emissions, must help others to fund climate action.

"Developed nations led by the US will want to ignore their historic responsibilities and will say the world has changed," said Meena Ramam, from the Third World Network advocacy group.

"The question really is: how do you ensure that ambitious actions are done in an equitable way?"

Related Links
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High hopes and low expectations for UN climate summit
Paris (AFP) Nov 29, 2018
The warnings from science and Earth itself have never been so dire, but nearly 200 nations gathering in Poland next week face stiff headwinds in trying to ratchet up their response to the threat of catastrophic climate change. One thing all parties at the troubled UN talks agree on is that standing pledges to slash greenhouse gas emissions fall dangerously short. These voluntary national commitments must triple to cap global warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the collec ... read more