Senior European officials have called on the World Bank to expand its climate change strategy to exclude investments in oil and coal projects around the world and have asked to scale back investments in natural gas projects.
“We ... think that the Bank should now go further and exclude all investments related to coal and oil, and further lay down a policy to phase out the production of electricity from gas to invest in gas only in exceptional circumstances,” - wrote European officials in a letter, excerpts from which are quoted by Reuters.
The World Bank confirmed receipt of the letter, but did not disclose its contents. He noted that the World Bank and its subsidiaries have committed $ 83 billion to combat climate change over the past five years.
“Many of the initiatives referred to in the letter from our shareholders are already planned or under discussion as part of our draft Action Plan for Climate Change 2021–2025, which management is working on to complete next month,” the bank replied to Reuters request.
The United States, the largest shareholder in the World Bank, re-signed the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement this month and pledged to push US multilateral institutions and government lending institutions towards "climate-focused investments and move away from high-carbon investments."
World Bank President David Malpass told G20 finance officials on Friday that the Bank will make record investments in climate change mitigation and adaptation in 2021 for the second year in a row.
“Inequality, poverty and climate change will be the defining challenges of our era,” said Malpass. “It's time to think big and act big to find solutions.”
