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World Bank criticised over climate crisis spending
(The Guardian, 3 Oct 2022) Oxfam research suggests up to 40% of bank’s reported climate-related spending cannot be accounted for.
The World Bank has come under fire for failing to show that its claimed spending on the climate crisis is real, in a report suggesting up to 40% of its reported climate-related spending is impossible to account for.
Of $17.2bn that the World Bank reported it spent on climate finance in 2020, up to $7bn cannot be independently verified, according to research by Oxfam.
The findings are the latest blow to the World Bank over its climate finance activities. Last month, the former US vice-president Al Gore led calls for the president of the bank, David Malpass, to resign after he avoided a journalist’s questions on climate science.
Malpass later apologised but his apparent climate denial followed years of concern among governments and NGOs over his leadership of the bank, and the bank’s continued finance for fossil fuels. Malpass was appointed in 2019 by the then US president Donald Trump, under the convention by which the bank’s head is chosen by the US.
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The Guardian, 3 Oct 2022: World Bank criticised over climate crisis spending
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