3 December 2018: The World Bank Group has announced a new set of climate finance targets for 2021-2025, doubling its current five-year investments to around US$200 billion for countries to take ambitious climate action, and significantly increasing support for adaptation and resilience. The announcement came during the Katowice Climate Change Conference.

The US$200 billion consists of approximately US$100 billion in direct finance from the World Bank, and US$100 billion of combined direct finance from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), as well as private capital.

The plan will increase direct adaptation finance to around US$50 billion, representing the first time that the World Bank will put adaptation investments on an equal footing with mitigation funding. These investments will go towards building better adapted homes, schools and infrastructure, and investing in climate-smart agriculture (CSA), sustainable water management and responsive social safety nets.

The plan represents the first time that the World Bank will put adaptation investments on an equal footing with mitigation funding.

The World Bank will also develop a new rating system to track and incentivize global progress, including actions that support higher quality forecasts, early warning systems, and climate information services to better prepare 250 million people in 30 developing countries for climate risks. The money will also build more climate-responsive social protection systems in 40 countries, and finance CSA investments in 20 countries.

The World Bank Group is expected to continue to integrate climate considerations into its work, including through screening projects for climate risks and building in appropriate risk mitigation measures, disclosing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and applying a shadow carbon price for material investments. It will also: continue supporting countries to integrate climate considerations into their policy planning, investment design, implementation and evaluation; support at least 20 countries in implementing and updating their nationally determined contributions (NDCs); and increase engagement with Ministries of Finance in designing and implementing low-carbon policies.

The investments will also help finance renewable energy, green buildings, climate-smart agribusiness, urban transportation, water and urban waste management. More specifically, the plan is expected to: support the generation, integration and enabling infrastructure for 36 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy and support 1.5 million GW hours (GWh) equivalent of energy savings through efficiency improvement; help 100 cities achieve low-carbon and resilient urban planning and transit-oriented development; and increase integrated landscape management in up to 50 countries, covering up to 120 million hectares of forests.

The new targets build on the World Bank Group’s 2016 Climate Change Action Plan. In 2018, the World Bank Group provided US$20.5 billion in finance for climate action. The Katowice Climate Change Conference is meeting in Poland from 2-14 December 2018. [World Bank Press Release] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on COP 24 Opening]