The World Bank has officially expanded its mission to include climate change, while pushing ahead with reforms that could unlock additional funding and cheaper loans for green projects.
In his first major speech since taking office, President Ajay Banga said a set of measures to stretch its balance sheet could allow the bank to increase lending by up to $15.7 billion a year.
The extra funding would support the implementation of the bank’s new vision statement approved by its governing body on Thursday.
The historical objective to “end poverty” should now be achieved “on a livable planet”. The new mission will give the lender the formal mandate to tackle a whole range of global challenges, among which climate change is seen as the most urgent one.
Banga said this will widen the aperture through which the bank looks at its task in the future. “If you can’t breathe and cannot drink clean water, there is little point in eradicating poverty,” he added.
Year-long reforms
Announced at the lender’s annual meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, the changes come a year after a group of its biggest shareholders, led by the United States and Germany, called for its fundamental shake-up to deliver more climate finance.
The overhaul quickly picked up pace. Former chief David Malpass resigned early, after sparking an outcry with climate sceptic comments, and was replaced by Banga, a former Mastercard CEO, who promised far-reaching reforms.
Banga is seeking to create a “better and bigger” bank capable of plugging a few more of the huge gaps in the provision of climate finance to developing countries.
But a lack of appetite to inject fresh funds into its coffers directed the focus on financial tweaks to make the existing capital go further. The reforms mainly concern the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the lending arm for middle-income countries.
Accounting tweaks
The first concrete step came in April when the bank lowered its equity-to-loan ratio from 20% to 19%, freeing up $4 billion a year.
The lender is also creating a programme of guarantees backed by shareholders, which would step in to cover potential losses if borrowers cannot repay their loans. The measure would offload some of the risk currently shouldered by the World Bank to its donors, allowing the bank to channel those reserves into more new lending.
Another option under development is the launch of a hybrid capital mechanism, which allows shareholders to inject new funds by investing in special bonds issued by the World Bank.
US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen at the World Bank annual meetings in Marrakech. Photo: World Bank / Franz Mahr
Taken together, this suite of tools could boost the bank’s lending capacity by $157 billion over the next decade, Banga said on Friday.
He added that the plans have been “met with enthusiasm and generosity”. But, crucially, their potential will only be realised if shareholders fork out the money.
Saudi Arabia, Russia urge World Bank to keep funding fossil fuels
The US government favours the guarantees plan and wants Congress to approve $2.1 billion in new funding that could unlock $25 billion in new loans. Germany has become the first country to pledge 305 million euros ($321 million) of “hybrid capital”.
Cheaper energy loans
Another element of Banga’s blueprint is the extension to middle-income countries of the cheap loans that are currently exclusively offered to low-income ones. The concessional resources currently available “are insufficient to deliver on the new vision and mission”, a paper outlining the bank’s reforms said.
The rollout of clean energy in high-emitting countries is one of the primary areas the lender would be targeting with these measures.
“We’re investigating if we can reduce interest rates to incentivize exiting from coal as part of energy transitions,” said Banga, “and find ways to encourage a renewable energy transition by increasing concessional finance in the mix.”
A thermo-solar power plant supported by the World Bank. Photo: Dana Smillie / World Bank
Danny Scull, an analyst at E3G, said this is a welcome step as incentivising countries like India and Brazil to take out cheaper loans for climate action will benefit the whole world.
Amid all the optimism, the World Bank chief added words of caution on how far his organisation can go without external help.
An influential panel of experts commissioned by the G20 said in July that development banks need to triple their lending levels by 2030 if they want to make a serious dent in the trillions of dollars of climate finance needed by developing countries.
Appeals for more capital
“The World Bank is merely an instrument that reflects the ambition of our shareholders,” said Banga, “the progress we aspire to achieve requires our resources and capital to be commensurate with our vision.” In other words, governments need to inject more money into the bank to fulfill this new mission.
But support for a direct capital increase is limited. The UK is the only major Western country in favour of the idea, which is strongly championed by developing nations, China and India above all.
For the US and Japan – the bank’s biggest shareholders – these discussions prompt a headache. They would need to contribute most to a capital increase, if they are to avoid their percentage ownership of the bank being watered down, perhaps as the share of geopolitical rival China rises.
Private sector engagement
Among rich countries, the preferred solution is to get the private sector to stump up more money.
Banga agrees, saying the lender needs “the scale, resources, and ingenuity of the private sector”. But he also acknowledged that “meaningful, sustainable progress has evaded us” on that front.
To change that equation the World Bank has set up a forum with a group of CEOs from some of the world’s biggest companies.
Banga said the initiative is initially focused on increasing private investment in renewable energy and the energy transition in developing countries.
The post World Bank approves green reforms, appeals for more money appeared first on Climate Home News.
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.
Developing countries struggle with debt burden
For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.
This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes.
Comment: World Bank and IMF should lead the financial system in responding to the climate crisis
The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.
In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.
At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.
The post Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.
Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
Climate Change
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
PERTH, Monday 19 October 2026 — Dozens of Perth community members delivered a giant petition, signed by almost half a million people, to Woodside’s corporate headquarters this morning, calling on the government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal.
Dressed in sea creature costumes and hats, supporters carried one of Australia’s biggest environmental petitions to Woodside’s headquarters, and a local choir performed a ‘Scott Reef’ rendition of Angie McMahon’s iconic cover of ‘Reckless’ by Australian Crawl.
On the sidelines of the Perth Global Citizen Now event, it comes following a two day-long protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform that saw activists scale and occupy the Floating Production Unit calling to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”. The activists were taken from the platform by police helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Less than a day after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists were arrested for their peaceful protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform to save Scott Reef, we are here again with another message to Woodside: half a million of us do not want your dirty gas at Scott Reef.
“Community pressure on Woodside is rising. Today we are here to show Woodside that they can’t ignore half a million people who want Scott Reef protected, not turned into an industrialised gas zone.
“Woodside can’t be trusted with our oceans. Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, putting endangered pygmy blue whales at risk, and jeopardising a nesting ground for unique green sea turtles.
“We Australians love our oceans and this is an opportunity for our governments to do the right thing, to reject Woodside’s reckless drilling plans, and save Scott Reef.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Emma Sangalli on +61 431 513 465
Climate Change
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists in police custody after two-day protest against Woodside’s Browse gas project at Scott Reef
PERTH, Sunday 18 October 2026 — Two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are in police custody after occupying a gas platform at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project, in peaceful protest of the fossil fuel corporation’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef.
NEW footage and photos of the peaceful protest available here and on Instagram
The activists used specialised climbing equipment to scale and attach themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth, at around 05:45am AWST on Saturday and proceeded to occupy the platform for two days, displaying banners reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
Special police forces landed a helicopter on the FPU at around 11:30am AWST. The activists safely removed themselves from their equipment before being taken into police custody around 1:00pm AWST. At the time of writing, no charges have been laid.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It takes guts and conviction to do what our activists have done, peacefully protesting Woodside’s reckless gas plans at Scott Reef.
“Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef are outrageous. If allowed to go ahead Woodside would turn Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles and elusive pygmy blue whales, into an industrial gas zone. Around half a million people have called on our governments to stop Woodside and to save Scott Reef.
“Our activists are highly trained and experienced in these activities. West Australia has a proud history of peaceful, democratic protest at sea, to protect our oceans from environmental threats. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coast to protect the places we love.
“Peaceful protest has long been part of what has given us so many of the things that are great about Australia and is part of the fabric of our democracy and our national identity.”
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to a healthy democracy. From Australia to the Arctic and the Amazon, Greenpeace has been peacefully protesting for more than 50 years to expose the biggest environmental threats around the world. We will not be silenced by corporations like Woodside who actively try to stop everyday people from speaking out against their reckless plans.
“Woodside’s reckless proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an unacceptable risk to Scott Reef and to the climate, which our government should emphatically reject.”
Speaking from the Rainbow Warrior, Captain of the Rainbow Warrior Hettie Geenen, said:
“It felt powerful watching from the Rainbow Warrior as these brave activists scaled Woodside’s enormous and imposing gas infrastructure, which has no place at Scott Reef. We are all out here because we feel an urge to act, in the face of Woodside’s grave threat to Scott Reef and to our climate. Now we ask for the Australian government to act too, and reject Woodside’s reckless Browse project.
“Just before this peaceful protest, the Rainbow Warrior sailed to Scott Reef, where our whole crew got to witness the magic of an untouched, healthy reef ecosystem full of marine life. It was my second time visiting Scott Reef with the Rainbow Warrior. When you see Scott Reef up close and witness its magic first hand, it is impossible not to feel driven to try and protect it.”
The activists sailed to Scarborough on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, which is in the region campaigning to protect Australia’s oceans, including Scott Reef.
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Media contact
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team in Perth on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404 or email media.au@greenpeace.org
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