The World Bank has announced a Climate Change Action Plan to help countries meet their Paris COP21 pledges and manage increasing climate impacts.
The Plan lays out concrete actions to help countries deliver on their Nationally Determined Contributions pledged to the Paris climate change meetings and sets ambitious targets for 2020 in high-impact areas, including clean energy, green transport, climate-smart agriculture, and urban resilience, as well as in mobilising the private sector to expand climate investments in developing countries.
The Action Plan will focus on transformational actions and policy changes that will make a major contribution to addressing climate change. Under the Plan, the World Bank plans to double its current contributions to global renewable energy capacity, aiming to add 30 gigawatts of capacity and to mobilise US$25 billion in private financing for clean energy by 2020. The World Bank Group will also quadruple funding for climate-resilient transport, integrate climate into urban planning through the Global Platform for Sustainable Cities, and boost assistance for sustainable forest and fisheries management.
To accelerate private sector investment, it will also work with regulators, create “green” banking champions and continue to promote development of the green bond market.
Building resilience against climate shocks
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector in developing countries, aims to increase its climate investments from the current $2.2 billion a year to a goal of $3.5 billion a year, and will lead on leveraging an additional $13 billion a year in private sector financing by 2020.
IFC will expand its climate investments in sectors including grid-connected renewable energy, green buildings, industrial/commercial energy efficiency, and climate-smart urban infrastructure.
The Action Plan recognises the urgency of building resilience against climate shocks, including natural disasters and impacts on farming and agricultural supply chains. Climate-smart agriculture investment plans will be developed for at least 40 countries, with 100% of agriculture lending to be climate-smart by 2020. Priority areas will include the use of climate resilient seeds, high-efficiency irrigation, livestock productivity, and risk management.
The Group also aims to bring early warning systems for natural disasters to 100 million people in 15 countries by 2020. Over the same time period, it will work to extend social protection systems that can adapt to climate impacts to 50 million people.