Why the World Bank is Taking on Climate Change

If you had a life-threatening illness and there was near unanimous consensus among doctors about the cause, what would you do?

We know that climate change, left unchecked, threatens the health, homes, and livelihoods of millions of people around the globe, with the poorest and most vulnerable hit the hardest. 

This week, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release a major report that is expected to raise the panel’s certainty that human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, is the cause of much of the warming seen in recent years. In New York, World Bank President Jim Jong Kim will also be speaking at the opening of Climate Week on Sept. 23 on the impacts of climate change on poverty and the need for action.

“Decades of progress are now in danger of being rolled back because of climate change,” President Kim says. "This is a ‘make-or-break’ decade for action on global warming. The time to address the interlinked challenges of climate change and ending extreme poverty is now.”