Accelerating climate actions helps developing countries, including Egypt, address

Accelerating climate actions in developing markets, including Egypt, and poorest countries is expected to address the challenged created by the pandemic in such economies, especially when it comes to the rising level of unemployment, according to President of the World Bank David Malpass.

Malpass made his comments in his answer to Ahram Online’s question on the role that efforts against climate change are expected to play to contain the implications of the pandemic on the economy and individuals.

This came during the press conference that the World Bank held today as part of the World Bank and the international Monetary Fund (IMF)’s spring meetings.

He added that green investments and zero-carbon projects will help such economies, including Egypt, boost their economic growth through these investments revenues, and thus contribute in curbing the rising levels of public debt, in addition to addressing the economic fallout these economies witnessed in 2020 amid the pandemic.

He also pointed to the climate change action plan that the World Bank announced on 2 April as the largest multilateral provider of climate finance for developing countries.

The action plan includes increasing the World Bank’s climate finance, as 35 percent of the World Bank Group’s financing will have climate co-benefits, on average, over the next five years; and 50 percent of the World Bank and its financial arms’ climate financing will support adaptation and resilience.

“This represents a big step up from the 26 percent achieved on average in the bank’s FY2016-2020 and an even bigger step up in dollar terms as the World Bank Group’s total financing has also expanded”, Malpass illustrated.

Under that plan, the World Bank Group is committed to aligning financing flows with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, according to Malpass.

For the World Bank, Malpass noted that it plans to align all new operations by 1 July 2023, and 85 percent of new operations implemented by the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency will be aligned by 1 July 2023 and 100 percent of them by 1 July 2025.

The World Bank extended over $83 billion in climate finance over the past five years, reaching the highest level in a single year in 2020 at $21.4 billion.

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