The World Bank will no longer finance upstream oil and gas after 2019, it announced recently, winning praise from civil society for its “true climate leadership.” The announcement was met with whoops and sustained applause at the One Planet climate summit in Paris, hosted by the French government, alongside the World Bank and United Nations.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the decision came as the lender aligned its goals to meet those of the COP21 Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to keep global temperatures below a 2-degree increase on pre-industrial levels. The move all but eliminates the World Bank’s support for fossil fuels, with Kim saying it had not supported coal projects since 2010.

There is now global consensus that energy access for the poor is best provided through clean energy and that shared prosperity can only be assured through ambitious action on climate change.” - Shelagh Whitley, head of the climate and energy program at the Overseas Development Institute

Read the full article by Vince Chadwick and Michael Igoe about clean energy from Devex International Development