World Bank – world class helper or world class hoax?

Oct 05, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It seems that the pious public positions of leaders of respected sources are for the record only, a case of going with the times. Of all the institutions that could be found in the category of doublespeaking and playing a double game, the leader of the World Bank was the last person expected to be in the mix of hypocrites and hoaxers where the causes of climate change are concerned. But this was how he came across recently, despite our overlooking the Bank’s owns potty record and its iffy reputation where poor and less developed countries are involved.

World Bank President, David Malpass, refused to give a straight answer recently at a public forum when he was asked about the contribution of fossil fuels to climate change. All that the World Bank President would allow himself to commit to was “I am not a scientist” (“World Bank leader, accused of climate denial, offers a new response” -New York Times, September 23). If this was the best that the head of a global game-changer on climate change, like the World Bank, could offer publicly, then we prefer not to hear the worst. Earlier on that same day, former American Vice President, Al Gore, had called the World Bank chief, a “climate denier.” Clearly, President Malpass proved him right, as his own words and non-answers gave him away.

Under his leadership, the World Bank has compiled a record of sluggishness on doing more to help poor countries being devastated by “floods, heat, droughts, and other impacts” directly attributed to climate change. There have been increasing calls from a wide variety of voices for the World Bank to change direction, and ease up, if not stop altogether, its financing of oil and gas projects. The World Bank has to take a clear and convincing position that fossil fuels are a contributor to climate (and its destructive impacts) and, in which case, its money will not be lent for such projects. The World Bank cannot have it both ways, which is exactly what its leader ended up trying to do, following the firestorm of criticisms that he drew both from inside and outside of the institution.

On Thursday, and during a CNN interview, Mr. Malpass came off the fence, and took a hard line, a straight one: “It’s clear that greenhouse gas emissions are coming from man-made sources, including fossil fuels, I’m not a denier.” It is obvious that the World Bank President was engaging in some damage control, which can be sourced to the power of outcries against his earlier timidity and hesitancy. As to whether his change in tune and position is genuine, we cannot say, take guardedly. The proof will be what he leads the World Bank to do differently on those same two things that we identified earlier. That is, how more this global lending institution gives a much needed helping hand (funding) to countries reeling from severe climate change impacts, and how much less it finances oil and gas projects. In terms of such financing, the World Bank and President Malpass have an opportunity to reduce it to none. That would the best proof of their belief in fossil fuels harmful relationship to climate change, and furnish evidence that what Mr. Malpass said on CNN was sincere.

Though we understand that leaders have to walk a fine line, we can never agree when they play games like these, when so much injury, so much damage, results from what can no longer be labelled a “hoax” or “pseudoscience.” That may be the mindset of former President Trump, who nominated him to be head of the World Bank, but it has no place at the World Bank. It may be the deep-down position of the top people at ExxonMobil, even some of Guyana’s political leaders, but it can never be that of the World Bank, certainly not its head. Guyanese, meanwhile, get another glimpse of how tricky and deceptive leaders can be on matters of the greatest importance. Look at what is happening here, with the deceptions and doubletalk that come from the PPP/C Government and its leaders on a long list of harmful local issues related to our oil.

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