{"id":407475,"date":"2025-10-10T13:50:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407475"},"modified":"2025-10-10T13:50:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:50:30","slug":"world-banks-foolish-climate-fantasies-hurt-the-poor-the-us-can-stopp-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407475","title":{"rendered":"World Bank\u2019s foolish climate fantasies hurt the poor- The US can Stopp this"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Exterior<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The New York Post<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Bjorn Lomborg<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015, the World Bank declared a perilous \u201cnew course,\u201d vowing to lead the way on green financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, it funnels 44% of its funds \u2014 $42.6 billion annually \u2014 into climate projects, siphoning resources from the world\u2019s most desperate needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As its largest shareholder, the United States cannot continue to ignore this climate fixation.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Monday\u2019s World Bank Annual Meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent must demand that it explicitly scrap its wasteful climate targets \u2014 and redirect its attention to its true objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember, the Bank\u2019s purpose has always been lifting poor people out of poverty<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the climate-change narrative took hold, poverty was implausibly linked to 100-year temperature changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Bank, misrepresenting one of its own thoughtful reports, claimed in 2015 that without climate action more than 100 million additional people might be poor in 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, that report found that a renewed focus on prosperity could lift almost a billion<\/em> people out of poverty, but climate action would have virtually no impact by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Bank President Ajay Banga, nominated by President Joe Biden<\/a> in 2023, claims poverty and climate must be tackled jointly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well-meaning as this may be, it is dangerous sophistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tackling poverty through nutrition, health and education can quickly help hundreds of millions of people live better lives at low cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tackling poverty through climate action will do next to nothing  \u2014 yet climate policy costs easily run into the trillions, while harming the world\u2019s poor<\/a> by driving up costs of fertilizer and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rigorous research shows that dollar for dollar, core development investments \u2014 like improving maternal health<\/a>, advancing e-learning or enhancing agricultural yields \u2014 deliver much greater and faster benefits than climate spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Bank\u2019s own client surveys show people in poorer nations rank climate change near the bottom of their concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raiding development funds for climate initiatives isn\u2019t just misguided but an affront to human suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing nations today need cheap, reliable power to industrialize, create jobs and thrive \u2014 just as rich countries did a century ago, and China did over recent decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of Africa remains quite poor with little access to energy beyond wood and hydro power. The average poor African uses as much fossil fuel in a year as an American uses in less than 9 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Bank aims to connect 300 million more Africans to electricity by 2030 through its Mission 300 initiative \u2014 a worthy goal that\u2019s being sabotaged by its fixation on renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank\u2019s energy access plans signed with 29 countries are \u201cprioritizing\u201d solar and wind, while tiptoeing around fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more the Rockefeller Foundation, the bank\u2019s Mission 300 partner, touts renewables as the \u201cmost cost-effective and rapid route to prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is fantasy: While solar and wind can be cheaper than fossil fuels when the sun is shining and the wind blowing,\u00a0it is infinitely costly<\/a>\u00a0when there\u2019s no sun and wind.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reliable power requires extensive backup that drives costs up significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why rich countries, despite their green rhetoric, still get more than three-quarters of their energy from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While African leaders will politely speak green to Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank, their actions speak more loudly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Africa added five kilowatt-hours of electricity for each person from solar and wind \u2014 but added almost five times more from fossil fuels, because they\u2019re cheaper and more reliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across all energy use (not just electricity), Africa increased its solar and wind consumption a bit, but increased its fossil fuel consumption 22 times more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bessent has lambasted the World Bank for \u201cmission creep,\u201d<\/a> for vapid slogans like \u201cending poverty on a livable planet,\u201d and for lending to middle-income China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is right to push reforms, including a tech-neutral energy policy that prioritizes affordability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the United States should go further and demonstrate bold leadership by insisting that the World Bank scrap its ring-fenced funds for climate.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scarce funds should go toward tackling poverty head-on, not to trendy green goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change demands action, but not at poverty\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich governments should invest in long-overdue R&D for breakthrough green technologies \u2014 affordable, reliable alternatives that everyone, rich and poor, will adopt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Bank\u2019s decade-long detour into climate activism is not saving the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, it\u2019s abandoning the poor \u2014 and has influenced other development organizations to do the same.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is high time for this giant to be pushed back on course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University\u2019s Hoover Institution, and author of \u201cFalse Alarm\u201d and \u201cBest Things First.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015, the World Bank declared a perilous \u201cnew course,\u201d vowing to lead\u00a0the way on green financing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":407478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"Explore how the World Bank's climate focus diverts funds from urgent poverty alleviation needs, risking lives of the world's most vulnerable.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Why the World Bank Must Prioritize Poverty Over Climate Goals","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691819134,691818056,691824737,691821042,691821243,691820587,691838681,691820465,691838682],"class_list":{"0":"post-407475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-alarmism","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-climate-projects","11":"tag-paris-climate-agreement","12":"tag-rockefeller-foundation","13":"tag-solar-and-wind","14":"tag-treasury-secretary-scott-bessent","15":"tag-world-bank","16":"tag-world-bank-president-ajay-banga","18":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0Screenshot-2025-10-10-133920.png?fit=1600%2C874&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1I0b","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":376997,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=376997","url_meta":{"origin":407475,"position":0},"title":"Climate Activists Look to China to Give Them \u201cLeadership\u201d","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/05\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The activists might have quite a wait for China to provide more money. 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