France asks World Bank not to abandon climate target

France's development minister made a last-minute appeal to the World Bank on Thursday (25), urging it to resist pressure from its largest shareholder, the United States, and maintain a climate finance target that is set to expire at the end of the month.

US President Donald Trump's administration has demanded that the World Bank abandon its target of allocating 45% of its annual credit resources to climate-related projects and focus instead on lending for basic development, including a return to fossil fuel projects.

The CCAP (Climate Change Action Plan) has already been extended for a year, but it looks set to expire without a clear replacement, something that worries many European and other World Bank shareholders.

"As shareholders, countries of these institutions, it is, of course, our responsibility to ensure that their operations remain sufficiently ambitious when it comes to climate finance," said French Development Minister Eleonore Caroit at a London Climate Action Week event.

"And this, of course, applies when other shareholders have different views on climate, as is the case now," she added, referring to Donald Trump's administration in the US.

A group of 19 of the World Bank's 25 shareholders signed a statement last October calling for continued support of the bank's climate goals, but directors representing the US, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait refused to sign.

In response to the French appeal, a World Bank spokesperson said: "In relation to our Climate Change Action Plan, we are in active dialogue with our shareholders on next steps - focusing together on what matters most to our clients: smart development and concrete results."

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France will continue to champion the cause
Caroit, whose train from Paris to London was delayed due to rail problems caused by record temperatures in Europe, said shareholders supporting the cause "will remain extremely attentive" to what happens next.

"We will continue to ensure that the World Bank's Climate Change Action Plan moves in the right direction, and this is something we have been advocating in Washington and will do in Bangkok in a few months' time," she said, referring to the World Bank and IMF annual meetings in mid-October.

She highlighted how US opposition had stalled progress on other global environmental initiatives, including the plastics pollution treaty, since Trump's return to office.

"We must not give up. We must continue to focus on the countries that want to move forward and ensure that this produces results," said Caroit.

With climate-related disasters expected to become more frequent due to global warming, she added: "We need to send a strong signal to all countries and all economic actors, in particular, at a time of backlash, so to speak, in certain countries."

Source: CNN