World’s Poor Better Off Without Dr Kim As World Bank Head

London, 9 January: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) welcomes the imminent departure of Dr. Jim Yong Kim as president of the World Bank. Appointed by President Obama in 2012, Dr Kim turned the World Bank into a green think tank, betraying its core mission of lifting the world’s most disadvantaged populations out of poverty.

Under Dr. Kim, the World Bank imposed an almost total ban on the financing of coal-fired power stations, despite coal being one of the most cost effective means of generating low cost, reliable electricity. Subsequently the financing ban was extended to the upstream oil and gas industries. In October, Dr. Kim announced that the World Bank was pulling out of the long-planned Kosovo coal project, arguing that Kosovo could make do with wind turbines, thus destabilising that fragile state’s economy.Commenting on Dr. Kim’s resignation, Rupert Darwall, author of the GWPF report The Anti-Development Bank: The World Bank’s regressive energy policies(2017), said:

Access to low cost, reliable electricity is critical to transforming the lives of those in poverty. During Dr. Kim’s tenure, the World Bank lost its way and sacrificed the interests of the poor to green ideology. It is essential Dr. Kim’s successor restores the World Bank to its former role as the world’s premier development bank and ceases to pander to the green lobby.

Note for editors

For the impact of the GWPF paper on the 2017 World Bank meeting see the report by The Zimbabwean: 'Africa, US Question World Bank Policy On Poor'