Climate Expectations for World Bank Group Spring Meetings
“The World Bank cannot be effective on climate action until it stops adding fuel to the fire. We’ll be looking to shareholders and Bank leadership to make serious commitments to stop all forms of support for fossil fuels,” said O’Manique.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6, 2023
Contact:
Valentina Stackl, [email protected]
Claire O’Manique, [email protected]
Collin Rees, [email protected]
Oil Change International: Climate Expectations for World Bank Group Spring Meetings
WASHINGTON, DC — The World Bank Group (WBG) will hold its Spring Meetings and Civil Society Policy Forum next week, April 10-16, 2023 at its headquarters in DC. This years’ meetings are facing extra scrutiny following the surprise early resignation of World Bank Group President David Malpass and expected appointment of Biden Administration nominee and former CEO of Mastercard Ajay Banga as his replacement through the “gentleman’s agreement.”
Stakeholders are monitoring for key developments in proposals to increase the Bank’s financing capacity, revisions of the G7+ led ‘evolution roadmap,’ and the release of a Paris Alignment ‘sector note’ on how the Bank will approach fossil gas projects. In anticipation, Claire O’Manique, Public Finance Analyst at Oil Change International, released the following statement:
“The Biden Administration and other wealthy governments are trying to dress up the World Bank Group as a credible savior for today’s polycrisis. But giving the Bank more power and money will just result in more fossil fuels, more debt, and more inequality unless the institution is forced to first change its ways.
“The World Bank Group cannot be effective on climate action until it stops adding fuel to the fire. In 2022 the World Bank Group still provided almost a billion dollars in public finance to support climate-wrecking fossil fuels, on top of ‘indirect’ support like its heavy-handed development policy finance that has a record of locking recipient countries into expensive and volatile fossil fuel contracts and subsidy regimes. This week we will be looking to shareholders and Bank leadership to make serious commitments to stop all forms of support for fossil fuels, along with other critical changes communities around the world have called for for decades: democratic voting reforms, binding human rights and labor standards, and serious debt cancellation.”
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Notes to Editors