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The World Bank has reached a $100 billion funding target for its lending arm dedicated to the world’s poorest countries, raising hopes for a boost in climate resilience financing.
Donor countries pledged $23.7 billion to the International Development Association (IDA) at a replenishment meeting in Seoul, South Korea. This represents a slight increase on the $23.5 billion pledged in 2021 but falls far short of the $30 billion that World Bank president Ajay Banga was hoping to secure.
The bank will be able to stretch the donors’ money to $100 billion through various financial engineering methods, including borrowing more from markets and freeing up capital for lending.
The money will be deployed through grants and concessional loans to 78 poor and vulnerable nations to help them respond to climate change, food insecurity and conflict, among other developmental needs under the overall theme of “ending poverty on a livable planet“.
But while the World Bank celebrated its largest ever IDA fundraising round, experts said rising inflation means the $100 billion figure represents a real-term cut compared to the previous round.
“Obviously we would have liked to see a bigger number,” Amy Dodd, a fellow at think-tank E3G, told Climate Home News. “But I would still see it as a success in the context of many donor countries slashing spending and aid budgets coming under a lot of pressure”.
G7 countries make up the majority of IDA’s traditional contributor base, which has grown from 48 to 59 countries in this cycle. While the World Bank has not yet disclosed a detailed breakdown of pledges, it said 17 donors increased their contributions by more than 25% in national currency.
The United States has pledged $4 billion under the outgoing Biden administration, but that will be tested under Donald Trump as Congress needs to approve the disbursement of funding.
“We know it’s going to be difficult, so we are not going to count our chickens too early there,” said E3G’s Dodd, adding that the final US contribution might be lower than it has pledged given Trump’s record of reneging on climate finance promises.
The United Kingdom announced a £1.98 billion ($2.52 billion) pledge, while Denmark, Latvia, Spain and Poland have made significant increases to their contributions.
In an open letter published on Friday, Banga applauded donor countries’ “generosity”, which he said contributed to making the IDA replenishment the largest in its history.
He added that the IDA has become critical in addressing the climate crisis.
Over the past 10 years, the IDA invested $85 billion globally with half of that going into building adaptation in poor countries by protecting communities from rising seas, building heat-resistant schools, and ensuring farmers have the right seeds for the right conditions, he wrote.
African nations receive nearly three-quarters of IDA’s financing and the bank is the main source of concessional climate capital, especially in supporting countries cope with climate impacts.
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In 2022, 35% of IDA’s projects had climate mitigation or adaptation co-benefits, according to the World Bank. Since then, the bank has committed to channelling 45% of its overall funding to climate projects by mid-2025.
Eleonora Cogo, Italian think-tank ECCO’s senior associate international finance, said the IDA replenishment was “good news” for climate finance and “particularly significant given the highly concessional nature of its funding”.
The IDA, she said, together with contributions from other multilateral development banks, will play a crucial role in channelling at least $300 billion a year from developed to developing countries by 2035 – a finance goal agreed at the UN COP29 climate talks in Baku in November.
(Reporting by Vivian Chime and Matteo Civillini; editing by Chloé Farand)
The post World Bank raises $100 billion for poor nations in boost for climate finance appeared first on Climate Home News.
World Bank raises $100 billion for poor nations in boost for climate finance
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Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
