{"id":33835,"date":"2016-04-20T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-10-19T21:19:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T21:19:12","slug":"8835-is-the-world-bank-s-climate-spending-quantity-over-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/8835-is-the-world-bank-s-climate-spending-quantity-over-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the World Bank\u2019s climate spending quantity over quality?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of its Spring Meetings<\/a>, which ended on April 17, the World Bank\u00a0released a Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP)<\/a>\u00a0that sets out\u00a0the institution\u2019s work on climate change from now until 2020, the same timeframe guiding the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

By 2020, the Bank hopes to provide US$29 billion (187.4 billion yuan) for climate projects, nearly triple its current average\u00a0per year. This would increase the percentage of Bank funding for climate from 21% to 28% of its total portfolio.<\/p>\n

Directing 28% of the Bank\u2019s budget towards climate action could do a lot to reorientate\u00a0capital markets towards renewables, support\u00a0sustainable urban infrastructure and strengthen the resilience of communities vulnerable to climate disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately the old adage \u2018quality over quantity\u2019 may apply here. For one, the CCAP repeatedly references hydropower as ‘renewable’. Large hydro has a long and complicated history at the Bank. The Narmada Dam and other movements called global attention to the displacement, lost livelihoods and irreversible environmental impacts that dams cause.<\/p>\n

Yet over the past several years, the Bank has returned to promoting mega-dams as a green, affordable option for getting power to the poor, promising it can get large hydro \u2018right.\u2019<\/p>\n

In December 2015, 500 organisations from 85 countries signed onto a Civil Society Manifesto for the Support of Real Climate Solutions<\/a>\u00a0to keep large hydro out of climate finance.<\/p>\n

They cite a number of reasons, including that dams disrupt rivers\u2019 natural function as carbon sinks and do massive damage to freshwater ecosystems. Perhaps most compelling is that mega dams<\/a> rely on a central grid, so their potential for providing rural electrification is low. This means that the energy they produce is more likely to go to large industrial projects than to the poor.<\/p>\n

Another area of concern in the World Bank plan\u00a0is its treatment of forests. The CCAP\u00a0notes that between 2002 and 2015, the World Bank Group has financed US$15.7 billion (101\u00a0billion yuan) in projects with forestry components. <\/span><\/p>\n

A recent study<\/a> shows, however, that development finance for forests is less than 3% of the total annual portfolio for the IBRD\/IDA<\/a>, which includes concessional finance for the poorest borrowing countries. This begs the question of what indigenous and forest-dependent communities will \u2018net\u2019 from World Bank investment in forests vis-a-vis its investment in sectors that drive deforestation like energy, mining and transport.<\/p>\n

The CCAP promises that\u00a0\u201cWBG organisation is now aligned to deliver on climate change”.\u00a0While top-level Bank officials may be poised to take on climate challenges, at least with their discourse, questions remain around the readiness of their counterparts at the operational level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Often, screening projects for climate impacts takes the form of \u2018toolkits\u2019 and \u2018guidance notes\u2019 for discretionary\u00a0use by project task teams.<\/p>\n

These documents tend to focus more project’s climate impacts\u00a0rather than the project’s resilience to climate change-related events.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the linchpin for real climate action at the World Bank should be the\u00a0assessment of alternatives to fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

The Bank should require accounting on\u00a0greenhouse gas emissions for the full life cycle of projects before they are approved, determine the social costs of carbon (i.e cost-benefit analysis)\u00a0and whether these\u00a0warrant consideration of\u00a0alternatives.<\/p>\n

While the value of up-front assessment seems self-evident, the World Bank Board has thrown its support behind Bank management\u2019s new \u2018adaptive risk management\u2019 strategy, which narrows the scope of the Bank\u2019s required due diligence and allows borrowing countries flexible time schedules for identifying and addressing environmental and social risk.<\/p>\n

This means that even a climate safeguard<\/a> could prove ineffective\u00a0in preventing carbon-intensive projects from reaching a Board vote. This has serious implications, especially given the Bank\u2019s ongoing consideration of lending to the\u00a0Kosovo C<\/a> lignite coal-fired power plant.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, World Bank lending through policy loans is\u00a0subject to far fewer requirements for environmental and social assessment, and would not even be covered by the proposed climate safeguard. <\/span><\/p>\n

This risks World Bank funds going to support policies and subsidies that incentivise fossil fuels \u2013\u00a0yes, even coal\u00a0\u2013\u00a0thereby cementing carbon-intensive development paths for countries whose poor will be hardest hit.<\/p>\n

While the potential of the Bank\u2019s target 28% towards climate initiatives is commendable, the real question is: how will the Bank ensure that the other 72% of its portfolio meets the standards set by its lofty climate \u00a0goals?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Bank\u2019s recent\u00a0decision to increase\u00a0funding for\u00a0climate-friendly projects masks deficiencies, writes Margaret Federici<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2403,"featured_media":58651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[758,761],"tags":[544,585],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-33835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-climate","tag-finance","tag-renewables"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs the World Bank\u2019s climate spending quantity over quality? | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The World Bank\u2019s recent\u00a0decision to increase\u00a0funding for\u00a0climate-friendly projects masks deficiencies, writes Margaret Federici\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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