Global leaders should end their flirtation with green virtue-signalling

OVER the past decade, the leaders of corporate and international organisations became used to being lauded for making grand but ultimately empty, green promises on stages in Davos and climate summits. How quickly things have changed. Fear of being called out by the Trump administration is forcing many leaders into changing course – at least in their rhetoric.

World Bank president Ajay Banga’s first move when he took over the institution back in 2023 was to extend its mission from ending poverty to incorporate climate change and making the planet “livable”. Last November, as he headed to the COP summit in Azerbaijan, Banga graced the cover of Time magazine’s “climate issue” and warned that climate change was “intertwined” with every challenge. Yet today, he somewhat implausibly tells reporters, “I’m not a climate evangelist”.

The shift in self-identification is frankly meaningless without deeper change. For the development banks, there is much work yet to be done to end poverty. Astonishingly, the World Bank and the African Development Bank ringfence a whopping 45 per cent and 55 per cent of annual financing, respectively, for climate projects. Both institutions divert half or more of these climate funds to projects that reduce the emissions of poor people – an absurdity when energy poverty remains a huge barrier to development.