"The reality is the Bank is currently not planning to play the role of allocating the money," he told an event at the UN's COP28 summit in Dubai.
"That will be done by a governing board that needs to be created, that should have representation from the donor countries as well as the recipient countries," he added.
Around $700 million has been pledged to the new "loss and damage" fund for countries impacted by climate change since it was approved by nations attending the COP 28 climate summit in Dubai on Thursday.
The amount so far falls well short of the $100 billion developing nations say are needed to meet the costs of changing climate, but more pledges are expected in coming days.
- Limited World Bank role -
The World Bank will most likely play a limited role in the loss and damage fund confined to managing its day-to-day operations, Banga said.
The development lender is frequently criticized by developing countries for the outsized role that major Western economies play in its governance.
Under an unofficial agreement between Europe and the United States, the World Bank has been led since its creation by a US citizen, while the International Monetary Fund has been managed by a European.
"Our job is like a trustee: We run it, we operate it, we hope to make sure the money goes the right places -- because we know how to do that," Banga said of the new fund, adding that it was still in its early stages.
The loss and damage fund was hailed as a positive start to this year's COP summit in the United Arab Emirates, billed as the largest summit to date with more than 140 world leaders due to speak on Friday and Saturday.
Climate finance has been a key sticking point, with wealthy nations most responsible for emissions not delivering on promises to support the vulnerable states who are worst affected but least responsible for global warming.
On Friday, Banga said the new fund would initially look to help finance "technical assistance and analytics" for countries impacted by climate change.
"If this gets done well, sometime next year is when you'll start seeing money actually be put out to help countries on the ground," he added.
Pledges made so far at the COP28 climate talks
Paris (AFP) Dec 1, 2023 -
The COP28 climate talks in Dubai have kicked off with a flurry of financial commitments for action on global warming, led by its big-spending, oil-rich host the United Arab Emirates.
But observers have warned that the headline-grabbing -- but voluntary -- pledges promoted by the UAE could distract from the more challenging work of negotiating a formal COP28 text at the climax of the two-week talks.
As pressure builds during what is expected to be the hottest year on record, here are some major funding pledges and declarations announced so far at COP28.
- Loss and damage -
The first day of the talks saw the official launch of a "loss and damage" fund to help vulnerable countries cope with the increasingly costly and damaging impacts of climate disasters.
Thursday's agreement came with pledges of $100 million each from the UAE and Germany, $109 million from France, $50 million from Britain, $25 million from Denmark and $17.5 million from the United States, the world's biggest oil and gas producer.
The total committed so far is a little over $576 million, according to a tally by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.
That falls vastly short of the $100 billion a year that developing nations -- which have historically been least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions -- have said are needed to cover losses from natural disasters.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told the summit that "we need to mobilise funding on a far greater scale".
Campaigners said the US offering was woefully inadequate from the world's biggest historical polluter.
Bineshi Albert of the Climate Justice Alliance called it "insulting".
"It is a paltry, shameful amount of money that shows the US is completely uninterested in prioritising or being accountable to the climate impacts frontline communities are facing," she said.
- Food and farming -
More than 130 countries have agreed to prioritise food and agriculture systems in their national climate plans, it was announced on Friday.
The non-binding declaration was welcomed by observers as putting food systems -- which are estimated to be responsible for roughly a third of human-made greenhouse gases -- in the spotlight.
But some criticised it for lacking concrete goals -- and not mentioning fossil fuels or signalling any change to more sustainable diets.
- UAE climate investment fund -
The UAE announced on Friday it would put $30 billion into a new private climate investment fund.
The oil-rich COP28 host said that the fund, called Alterra, would partly try to focus on climate projects in the developing world, and hoped to stimulate investments totalling $250 billion by 2030.
- Tripling renewables? -
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that more than 110 countries want to adopt the goal of tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements worldwide by 2030.
G20 nations, which account for nearly 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, paved the way for a deal when they endorsed the renewable energy goal in September.
An announcement about the target is expected on Saturday.
While supporters are expected to push for the pledge to be included in the final outcome of the talks, there are fears that the COP28 hosts were willing to shunt the more ambitious targets into voluntary deals.
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