LIMA — Development banks including the World Bank have pledged an additional $15 billion a year by 2020 to fight climate change, taking the world closer to the clutch target of $100 billion, officials said Friday.
Just two months before key UN climate talks in Paris, world leaders are scrambling to reach the magic number of $100 billion in funding to help vulnerable nations cope with the impact of climate change.
The figure was agreed in previous rounds of talks and is seen as a make-or-break issue in the years-long negotiations to reach a comprehensive carbon-cutting pact to save the planet from the potentially catastrophic impact of global warming.
The World Bank announced it would increase climate financing from 21 percent of its total funding to 28 percent in 2020.
In dollar terms, that would be an increase from an average of $10.3 billion a year now to $16 billion a year in 2020, at current funding levels.
"We are committed to scaling up our support for developing countries to battle climate change," World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.
"As we move closer to Paris, countries have identified trillions of dollars of climate-related needs. The Bank, with the support of our members, will respond ambitiously to this great challenge."
French finance ministry officials said other development banks including the European Investment Bank, Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank had made similar pledges for a total of $15 billion in new funds.
Meanwhile, Washington’s use of its de facto veto at the International Monetary Fund to block reforms giving emerging countries a greater say is jeopardizing the IMF’s credibility, its leader said Friday.
The IMF has been caught up in a protracted, politically charged battle over reforms intended to reflect the changing global economy by giving emerging giants such as China more weight at the Fund.
“It is an issue for the credibility and the representativeness of the institution, particularly vis-a-vis the under-represented countries,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at the Fund’s annual meeting in Lima, Peru.
The reforms – a doubling of IMF funding and a reallocation of voting power to boost China and other up-and-coming economic powers – were originally propelled by Washington, and President Barack Obama’s White House has repeatedly endorsed them.— AFP
