SUSTAINABILITY

Climate change. On January 15 the World Bank (WB) launched its Action Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change and Resilience. The objective is to increase funding for climate change adaptation projects to USD 50 billion between 2021 and 2025. This way, the entity will encourage private adaptation and resilience activities. The program also contemplates supporting Latin American countries to improve the systematic management of climate risks in all phases of policy planning, investment design and implementation.

The Action Plan focuses on adaptation and development for early action that also generates positive results. The WB believes that it is more cost-effective to generate an early proactive process of adaptation and resilience building rather than addressing climate change impacts once they have occurred. An example of this would be investments in mangrove replanting, which would protect a local community from rising sea levels.

Kristalina Georgieva, Director General of the World Bank, said that “this new plan will for the first time put climate change resilience projects on the same level as our investments in a low-carbon future”. It will also support action on watersheds, social protection systems, natural disaster response mechanisms and quality of forecasts.

Next steps

The World Bank will test this new system in 2019 and 2020. Funding will go towards improving climate information services, supporting 100 watersheds, developing social protection systems with adequate responses to climate change, and accompanying early response efforts to climate disasters. Effective implementation will begin gradually from June 30, 2021. The completion date of this plan is scheduled for July 1, 2025, in compliance with the climate action targets agreed during the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24).