Recent hurricanes in the Caribbean and the United States and devastating floods across South Asia are a stark reminder of the horrors that climate change will unleash if left unchecked. In 2016, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said that inaction on climate change ‘would spell disaster for us, for our children and for the planet.’
And yet, the World Bank Group continues to invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year in fossil fuel projects which only serve to exacerbate the problem. This must change – and we need your help to ensure it does.
The World Bank Group annual meetings in October provide an important window for upping the pressure on World Bank Executive Directors in the coming weeks. We want them to make the Big Shift out of fossil fuels altogether as a matter of urgency.
Send a message to the World Bank calling on the Bank to stop financing the exploration, extraction and burning of coal, oil and gas altogether and to invest 100% of its energy portfolio in renewable energy instead. As a first step, we want the World Bank to be more transparent about its loans so that we have a better handle on the extent of the problem and what needs to be done.
The good news is that access to clean, renewable energy is becoming cheaper and easier to install by the day. Around the world investors are waking up to these opportunities. At the same time, clean energy has the power to transform the lives of the billions of people living in energy poverty, including over a billion with no access to electricity at all.
By sending a message to your World Bank Executive Director, you will be joining hundreds of organisations and networks around the world participating in the Big Shift Week of Action, 18-24 September.
The Big Shift is a multistakeholder campaign calling on all public finance institutions to produce pathways to meet the target of max 1.5°C of global warming and of the Agenda 2030 for their respective operations by 2020, based on a synthesis of scientific advice and an assessment of social and economic development needs.
Read the campaign’s position paper and companion document for more information on the call to public finance institutions to stop funding fossil fuel projects and invest in sustainable, renewable energies allowing access to affordable, reliable efficient and clean energy to all.
The African Climate Reality Project supports The Big Shift campaign. We invite all Climate Reality Leaders to support the call to finance institutions to stop funding fossil fuel industries and invest instead in renewables and energy access for all.
Source: The Big Shift Global
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