Climate-hit island pushes to reshape World Bank, IMF

Climate-hit island pushes to reshape World Bank, IMF

PARIS: While conflict and inflation will dominate World Bank spring meetings next week, campaigners are pushing for a redesign of global financial architecture to help countries cope with climate change. Experts say developing nations are struggling to find the funds needed to stop burning planet-heating fossil fuels and prepare for tomorrow’s climate disasters, as they grapple with rising costs, soaring debts and extreme weather events. The question is what to do about it, amid international tensions driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and trade tussles between the US and China.

Enter Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley. “We believe that we have a plan,” the head of the Caribbean island nation, threatened by storms and sea level rise, told world leaders at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November. Known as the Bridgetown Initiative, the ideas she laid out include using the International Monetary Fund to turn “billions to trillions” in investments to cut carbon pollution, as well as a tax on fossil fuel profits to cushion the economic blows of climate impacts. While the proposals are still being debated, they have gained traction among the large economies that hold sway over the World Bank and IMF, raising hopes of action