Development and Climate Change: A Strategic Framework for the World Bank Group (Event)

This video contains clips of the World Banks consultation on a new framework for addressing climate change.

Climate policy experts from think tanks and academia have urged the World Bank to begin calculating the social and environmental costs of carbon emissions from the projects it funds and to include these calculations in project assessments. But bank officials rejected the calls, saying that the calculations were too difficult and politically sensitive.

The calls for carbon accounting--and for a more strategic and energetic World Bank approach to tackling climate change generally--came during a high-level consultation with World Bank officials that CGD senior fellow David Wheeler organized in early September. About 25 experts from Washington's leading development and environmental research organizations took part in the half-day discussion of a 97-page bank document, "Development and Climate Change: A Strategic Framework for the World Bank Group" (PDF, 18 mb), which will go before the board of the World Bank on September 23.