11 November 2008
The brief details the World Bank's climate change policy, different carbon funds, and the World Bank's climate change mitigation and adaptation work in South Asia.
Climate change has recently become an important part of the World Bank’s agenda. Higher temperatures, erratic weather patterns, and rising sea level are just a part of the bigger threat posed by climate change. The World Bank considers climate change as an impediment to socioeconomic development and believes that failure to address the issue at the policy and project levels hampers its goals of poverty eradication and environmental sustainability. However, the World Bank Group’s longstanding commitment to financing carbon intensive development projects has raised serious questions about its climate strategy in the past and will continue to be an issue in the future.
In July 2008, the World Bank Board of Directors approved the creation of two climate investment funds whose purpose is to provide interim, scaled-up financing to developing countries to integrate climate change considerations in their programs. In September 2008, ten international donors pledged US$6.1 billion to the two funds which will be administered by the World Bank and disbursed through the multilateral development bank system. Though still in the nascent stages, these funding mechanisms are meant to help developing countries cover the mitigation and adaptation costs of climate change.
Even though South Asia has low green house gas emissions, climate change has already deeply affected the economic growth and development of South Asian countries and poses difficult challenges for the future. As South Asian economies rely mainly on agriculture, natural resources, forestry and fisheries sectors, increased risk of floods and droughts would decrease production in these sectors and exacerbate the condition of the poor. Recognizing the extreme risk that climate change poses for poverty alleviation and sustainable development, the World Bank has proposed numerous adaptation and mitigation strategies for the region.
Read the brief in full:
South Asia Climate Change Brief, Bank Information Center, November 5, 2008 (Acrobat, pdf)