World Bank Commits Billions to Fight Global Warming

The global warming frenzy has gone international with the World Bank announcing that it’s committing billions of dollars to combat its effects in poor African and Asian countries that stand to suffer most.

Why should Americans care about this? Because, as is the case with a number of leftist international organizations that aim to save the planet, the United States is the World Bank’s largest contributor, annually filling the poverty-fighting institution’s coffers with hundreds of millions of dollars. Take a look at the U.S. Treasury 2013 budget request for international programs that include the World Bank. 

It’s bad enough that the Obama administration has published a number of reports warning of the ills of global warming, likely to support public funding for the cause. The government-sanctioned studies have determined over the years that climate change will lead to a worldwide increase in mental illness and cancer, that it will threaten the world’s food and water supply and even national security. In fact, one government report confirmed that global warming is one of the “most visible environmental concerns of the 21st century.”

The World Bank has published two scary reports of its own to make a case for financing its exorbitant global warming projects. The first one, released last year, determined that adverse effects of global warming are “tilted against many of the world’s poorest regions” and are likely to undermine development efforts and goals. It projects extreme heat-waves and life-threatening sea level rise that will devastate water and food supplies in some parts of the world.

The second report was released this week, to coincide with the World Bank’s big announcement that it’s committing billions to combat climate change in poor nations, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia. It also warns that poor communities will be the most vulnerable to climate change and describes the risks to agriculture and livelihood security in Sub-Saharan Africa; the rise in sea-level, loss of coral reefs and devastation to coastal areas in South East Asia and the fluctuating water resources in South Asia.

As the coastal cities of Africa and Asia expand, many of their poorest residents are being pushed to the edges of livable land and into the most dangerous zones for climate change, according to the findings. Their informal settlements cling to riverbanks and cluster in low-lying areas with poor drainage, few public services, and no protection from storm surges, sea-level rise and flooding.

Warming on critical areas like agriculture production, water resources, coastal ecosystems and cities paint a “dramatic picture of a world of climate and weather extremes causing devastation and human suffering,” the report says. “In many cases, multiple threats of increasing extreme heat waves, sea-level rise, more severe storms, droughts and floods will have severe negative implications for the poorest and most vulnerable.”

Indeed this is a dramatic scenario and the U.S. will undoubtedly provide a huge chunk of cash to help make things better. Otherwise a “warmer world will keep millions of people trapped in poverty,” according to a World Bank press release announcing the latest climate change report. We can’t have that, says World Bank President Jim Yong Kim of the U.S., who stresses that “urgent action is needed.”