“We are approaching the climate crisis with action and impact,” he said in a speech to finance ministers from around the world on Wednesday morning. “We want to dramatically increase the number and size of projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” But shortly after that speech, Mr. Malpas was on the defensive. After making the remarks at the World Bank pavilion inside the sprawling conference center hosting the summit, known as COP27, Mr Malpass was confronted by a reporter from The Guardian who repeatedly asked: “Are you a climate denier?” Mr. Malpas turned on his heel. “You know I’m not,” he said, before being joined by members of the World Bank staff. Three years after being appointed to lead the World Bank by President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Malpas is performing a cutting edge act. He is the face of a foundation that provides billions of dollars a year to finance projects aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change and helping poor countries adapt to a warmer planet. But he is dogged by questions about his own views on the science of climate change, as well as accusations that the World Bank is not doing nearly enough. “I have no personal beef with him as a person,” former Vice President Al Gore, who has been a staunch critic of Mr. Malpas and called him a “climate denier,” said in an interview before the summit. But, Mr Gore added, “his approach really falls far short of what the world needs”. Scientists and policy experts have said for years that the World Bank is not acting fast enough to tackle climate change under Mr Malpass. They point to high interest rates for developing countries, insufficient climate funds and continued funding of fossil fuel projects as evidence that the bank lacks a coherent climate strategy. Then, in a live interview with The New York Times in September, Mr. Malpass declined to say whether he accepted the scientific consensus that burning oil, gas and coal is rapidly warming the planet. “I’m not a scientist,” he said at the time, repeating a talking point often used by climate change deniers. Many leading voices in the climate movement have called for his resignation, and some of the bank’s top shareholders have expressed concerns about his leadership. “We disagree with President Malpas’ comments,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in September. “We look to the World Bank to be a global leader in climate ambition and mobilization.”
Our Coverage of the COP27 Climate Summit
Mr. Malpas kept his job. But in the weeks that followed, two independent reports raised questions about the World Bank’s climate strategy. Last month, Oxfam issued a report that cast doubt on the bank’s claims about the extent of its climate work. After conducting an independent audit of what the bank said was its $17.2 billion 2020 climate portfolio, Oxfam said that figure could be reduced by as much as $7 billion. “The public really knows very little about what the bank counts as climate finance,” said Christian Donaldson, senior policy adviser at Oxfam. “His report is very inadequate.” Another report by an advocacy group found that since the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which world leaders pledged to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, the World Bank has spent 14, $8 billion to support fossil fuel projects. The planet, meanwhile, has warmed an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius. “Every time the World Bank invests in another fossil fuel project, it fuels more climate disaster,” said Sophie Richmond, one of the group’s organizers. “There is no justification for using taxpayers’ money to exacerbate the climate crisis.” Mr. Malpass and other World Bank officials defended their track record, citing specific projects and the scale of their funding for climate efforts as evidence of their commitment to the issue. The World Bank is the world’s largest provider of finance for climate projects, spending about $68 billion on such efforts over the past five years, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Shortly before arriving in Egypt, Mr. Malpass was in South Africa and visited the Komati Power Station, a former coal-fired power plant that is being repurposed to use solar and wind energy with funding from the World Bank. (Mr Malpass’s flight from South Africa was struck by lightning, delaying his arrival in Egypt.) In an interview ahead of the conference, Axel van Trotsenburg, the World Bank’s chief operating officer, suggested that rich nations, including the bank’s top shareholders, were scapegoating the bank for moving too slowly on climate action. “There’s an effort to pick up the slack from a lot of the other factors by focusing on the actions of the bank,” Mr. Trotsenburg said. A host of international leaders stand by Mr Malpass and the World Bank. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, said Mr Malpass still had her support. “I’ve been working with David for quite some time now and we really work together,” he told a New York Times event on the sidelines of the UN climate summit on Tuesday. “What we need to do is support and encourage the World Bank to complete the work it’s doing and then help it mobilize funding.” Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said the World Bank’s shortcomings go beyond any individual. “The problem is not the bank president,” he said in an interview late last month. “The problem is sometimes the board and sometimes the bureaucracy. The board must give a clear direction for the World Bank, for the other international financial institutions. They need to do more for the climate.” The World Bank is run by its main shareholders, which include the United States, Germany, France and Japan, and follows the instructions of those countries. “I think the leaders of the IMF, the World Bank, the regional development banks are doing what they can,” Ms Okonjo-Iweala said, referring to the International Monetary Fund. “But there is a limit. Shareholders must make the decision to support them. They need more capital, for example. They need to relax some of their strict criteria. Do I see that happening? I think the momentum is building.” At COP27, several world leaders voiced their support for fundamental reforms of the World Bank and IMF, created almost 80 years ago towards the end of World War II. However, bureaucracy can hinder efforts for rapid and radical change. “I’m not overly optimistic that there is an irreversible process of institutional change, but I think there is an increased awareness of the need for it,” said Ashvin Dayal, who heads the power and climate program at the Rockefeller Foundation. “These institutions are ultimately going to make or break the battles to tackle climate change in the developing world, and the clock has never been ticking more than now.” Raymond Zhong contributed reporting from New York and Max Bearak contributed reporting from Sharm el Sheikh.
