World Bank Group - Climate Change Action Plan

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/07/world-bank-investments-climate-change-environment

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/04/07/world-bank-group-unveils-new-climate-action-plan

http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climatechange

http://climate4development.worldbank.org/

http://data.worldbank.org/topic/climate-change

April 7, 2016

World Bank Group Sets New Course to Help Countries Meet Urgent Climate Challenges

The World Bank Group’s Climate Change Action Plan is designed "to help countries meet their Paris COP21 pledges and manage increasing climate impacts."

A key focus of the new plan is boosting the resilience of people and communities to climate shocks, with new efforts to expand early warning systems, climate-smart social protection, and urban and coastal resilience.

The Bank Group is ramping up action in renewable energy, sustainable cities, climate smart agriculture, green transport and other areas – with ambitious targets for 2020.

To help countries meet this challenge, the World Bank Group today adopted a new Climate Change Action Plan, which lays out concrete actions to help countries deliver on their NDCs and sets ambitious targets for 2020 in high-impact areas, including clean energy, green transport, climate-smart agriculture, and urban resilience, as well as in mobilizing the private sector to expand climate investments in developing countries.

The Action Plan recognizes the urgency of building resilience against climate shocks, including through natural disasters and impacts on farming and agricultural supply chains. Climate-smart agriculture investment plans will be developed for at least 40 countries, with 100 percent of agriculture lending to be climate-smart by 2020. Priority areas will include the use of climate resilient seeds, high-efficiency irrigation, livestock productivity, and risk management. The Bank Group also aims to bring early warning systems for natural disasters to 100 million people in 15 countries by 2020. Over the same time period, the Bank Group will work to extend social protection systems that can adapt to climate impacts to 50 million people.

“The key question is how to leverage the resources available to meet the ambitious goals set in Paris,” said John Roome, Senior Director for Climate Change at the World Bank Group. “With the Action Plan, we will be helping countries to integrate climate change into their national policies, planning and budgeting; and to mobilize financing and use it for maximum impact.”

Under the Action Plan, the Bank Group will consider the risks and opportunities created by climate change across its country partnership frameworks. Climate risk screening is already applied to projects supported by IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, and will be extended to other operations in early 2017.