A brand new report by Oxfam, “Climate Finance Unchecked,” has decided that the World Financial institution has $41 billion in unaccounted funds that had been destined to combat local weather change.
This determine represents 40% of all disbursed local weather funds by the World Financial institution. Oxfam’s audit revealed that between 2017 and 2023, between $24 billion and $41 billion merely went unaccounted for and there may be completely no document of the place the cash went. Nobody is aware of how the cash was used as there isn’t any paper path revealing the place the cash went.
“The Financial institution is fast to brag about its local weather finance billions —however these numbers are based mostly on what it plans to spend, not on what it truly spends as soon as a mission will get rolling,” mentioned Kate Donald, Head of Oxfam Worldwide’s Washington D.C. Workplace. “That is like asking your physician to evaluate your weight-reduction plan solely by taking a look at your grocery record, with out ever checking what truly leads to your fridge.”
The World Financial institution is a pacesetter in local weather finance, controlling 52% of the full stream from all multilateral banks mixed. World Financial institution President Ajay Banga introduced in December that the financial institution achieved 35% of its financing three years forward of schedule. He then set a brand new goal of 45% by 2025. The financial institution later mentioned in September that it achieved 44% of local weather financing to the tune of $42.6 billion. “We’re placing our ambition in overdrive,” Banga mentioned.
The financial institution acknowledged that it was troublesome to maintain monitor of its 800 local weather financing initiatives however provided no perception into the lacking funds. “It’s clear that nobody — together with the Financial institution — has any actual concept of what number of billions of {dollars} are going to which local weather actions,” the Oxfam report mentioned.
But, local weather activists are demanding $5 trillion in ANNUAL financing for the World South to pay towards local weather debt. The place did the $41 billion go? That giant of a sum merely can’t be misplaced in a mere paperwork or oversight error. The local weather change agenda has turn into a slush fund for the elite who will proceed to fund this agenda with out taking any accountability for the place the funds go or in the event that they’re truly altering the local weather in any significant manner.
