OSAKA, Japan, June 13, 2008 – The following is a statement made by World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick at a news conference on Climate Investment Funds on the sidelines of the meeting of finance ministers for the Group of Eight (G8).
As Prepared for Delivery.
Nowhere are the effects of climate change as visible as in the developing world. The increasing frequency of droughts and floods and catastrophic climatic events are already hitting the poorest communities hardest. At a time of rising food prices, climate change creates more risks for developing world agriculture. We are beginning to see reverses in the progress already made in overcoming poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.
If we are to confront the current and future causes and effects of climate change, we need to learn more about this as a development challenge. We need to find new approaches in sectors ranging from agriculture to water management, from transport to urban development, and from biodiversity to energy access.
We cannot learn without doing.
So I want to thank Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States for leading the way in the development and financing of a new tool to counter climate change and learn more about future needs.
These Climate Investment Funds are being established through an inclusive and consultative process in support of the Bali Action Plan. In designing these Funds, we have taken great care to recognize the primacy of the UNFCCC in climate negotiations and to support these negotiations. These Funds offer an opportunity to take action on climate change now in both climate adaptation and mitigation.
Our first priority will be to help vulnerable countries learn how to integrate climate change considerations into their development strategies, and to adapt as necessary to climatic changes.
Under the Climate Investment Funds, the Strategic Climate Fund and its Pilot Program on Climate Resilience will provide us with crucial additional resources to test new approaches and create new knowledge for effective adaptation.
At the same time, we need to help rapidly developing countries implement their sustainable development strategies. The Clean Technology Fund will provide additional funds for programs in developing countries that reduce greenhouse gas emission levels through increased energy efficiency and the deployment of new technologies and approaches.
To be successful, we need concerted global action. Several countries are already taking climate actions through their own sustainable development strategies.Â
Brazil is putting in place policies and programs to reduce emissions from deforestation.
China reduced its energy intensity by 30% between 1995 and 2004.
India has decoupled its CO2 emissions from economic growth for almost a decade.
And Mexico has adopted a comprehensive national climate change strategy and is working on specific implementation plans.
We will work with developing and developed countries to expand this experience around the world. But while we discuss these issues, climate change is not waiting. We need to act now.
With the Climate Investment Funds, the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, together with developing country and donor country partners, can start making progress today by supporting innovative and pioneering initiatives, creating a new body of experiences and knowledge, and developing actions and processes that will inform the negotiations on the future of the climate change regime.
We will continue to work with these early stage contributors to reach out to others. Â The Climate Investment Funds are a concrete step forward toward meeting the challenge of global climate change. So again I want to thank our partners for their vision, spirit of cooperation, working with developing country partners, and generosity.
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