A new Climate Change Action Plan, by the World Bank was announced on Thursday the 7th of April, hoping investment in environmental projects reach $29 billion a year by 2020. World Bank planned to help countries in the developing world add 30 gigawatts of renewable energy to global energy capacity; provide “early warning systems” to 100 million people; and develop “climate-smart agriculture investment plans for at least 40 countries.” So would would the world bank Climate Investments affect Lebanon? What should Lebanon do in this regard?
To Limit Temperatures…
In a statement on Thursday, the Bank said that, in the next five years, it planned to help countries in the developing world add 30 gigawatts of renewable energy to global energy capacity; provide “early warning systems” to 100 million people; and develop “climate-smart agriculture investment plans for at least 40 countries.”
The news comes in the wake of the historic COP21 agreement reached in Paris at the end of 2015. There, 195 countries agreed to make sure global warming stayed “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The Bank said its announcement came a fortnight before the world’s leaders meet in New York to sign the Paris Agreement.
“Following the Paris climate agreement, we must now take bold action to protect our planet for future generations,” Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President, said in a statement on Thursday. “We are moving urgently to help countries make major transitions to increase sources of renewable energy, decrease high-carbon energy sources, develop green transport systems, and build sustainable, livable cities for growing urban populations,” he added.
“Developing countries want our help to implement their national climate plans, and we’ll do all we can to help them.”
Overall, the Bank said its Action Plan would look to deliver on a commitment from 2015 to boost, with support from members, climate financing to “potentially $29 billion annually by 2020.”
As part of its plans, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, will aim to increase its “climate investments” from $2.2 billion to $3.5 billion a year, as well as leveraging an extra $13 billion a year from the private sector by 2020.
In addition, the World Bank Group would look to “mobilize” $25 billion in “commercial financing for clean energy.”
The senior director for climate change at the World Bank Group said the issue was a pressing one. “If we don’t act, climate change threatens to drive 100 million more people into poverty in the next 15 years,” John Roome said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Action Plan will allow us to help developing countries more quickly, and in the areas where support is most needed, such as disaster preparedness, social protection, and coastal protection,” he added.
How Would Lebanon be Affected?
What should Lebanon do in order to benefit from these investments? Head of the Climate Change Unit at the Ministry of Environment (MoE), and Project manager at UNDP Vahakn Kabakian said, in a phone-call interview with “greenarea.info” that “it is very rare that the world bank gives grants, and most of the projects which Lebanon worked on in cooperation with the World Bank were loans, and not grants”.
On the other hand, the World Bank does not give any loan if Lebanon hasn’t prepared a policy plan, and a step by step feasibility plan. Kabakian added that “most of the funding the CDR gets is from the World Bank”.
What kind of projects comply with these investments? He answers that every project related to development could include an aspect in it related to climate. For example, a new project about public transportation is a developmental project, but at the same time, affects the climate. So, Lebanon might receive a loan for climate change, since the project aims to decrease traffic on the streets and burning fuel, hence, less pollution.
LARY is also working with the Ministry of Energy and Water on early-warning systems, where they warn around 9,000 farmers of storms that might be coming. They could benefit from the Cliamte investments in this case.
