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Bjorn Lomborg: Focus on global growth and fighting poverty, not climate politics

The world’s poorest deserve better than virtue signalling from afar

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This week in Washington more than 10,000 delegates, finance ministers and central bankers gather for the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings. Their stated goal: accelerate global development, drive economic growth and lift billions of people out of poverty.

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That mission remains vital. But too many development institutions have lost sight of what the world’s poorest people actually need. Flush with funding from taxpayers in wealthy nations, they increasingly prioritize elite western concerns — gender, social issues and climate change — over the basics that matter most: better education and health care and reliable energy.

Bjorn Lomborg: Focus on global growth and fighting poverty, not climate politics Back to video

Their continuing climate fixation is the clearest example of this disconnect. The World Bank proudly reports that in its latest fiscal year, 48 per cent of its funding went to so-called “climate finance,” up from 44 per cent the year before and exceeding its target of 45 per cent. To its credit, it does emphasize that these projects often do more than just deliver climate benefits, but that still means more than US$39 billion goes toward climate-themed projects.

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Across all multilateral development banks, spending on climate initiatives for low- and middle-income countries topped US$85 billion in 2024. The African Development Bank has gone further than most: climate finance now accounts for 49 per cent of its portfolio, while for 2025 it announced it will aim to have all projects incorporate climate considerations.

This is a profound misallocation. When Africans are asked directly what they worry about most, climate change barely registers. An Afrobarometer survey across 39 African countries, interviewing more than 50,000 people, found that respondents ranked unemployment, the economy, health, education, poverty, roads, electricity, hunger and corruption as their top concerns. Climate change ranked near the bottom — 31st out of 34 priorities.

When a child could die tonight from a preventable disease, no family cares about shaving a fraction of a degree off global temperatures a century from now. The well-heeled delegates in Washington — whose own children enjoy excellent health care, nutrition and education — can afford to obsess over such things. They may even convince themselves they are helping the poor by focusing on climate, but they are not. This is mission creep, and it is immoral.

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Consider one flagship development initiative: the World Bank and African Development Bank’s plan to deliver electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030. This is an excellent goal but despite rhetoric about an “all of the above” energy policy, much of the “Mission 300” energy plan focuses on renewable energy, whether or not it delivers the best results for Africa.

Plentiful, reliable and cheap energy is the foundation of prosperity. The rest of the world runs on fossil fuels — which still supply 81 per cent of the world’s energy and over 60 per cent of its electricity. The development banks should fund what works for Africans, not what satisfies rich-world climate ideology. Solar and wind will sometimes make sense, but they cannot yet deliver the constant, affordable electricity that powers agriculture and drives industry. Gas and coal remain the most practical bridge to prosperity for hundreds of millions of people.

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Leaders of the development institutions need to remember that what counts is not empty rhetoric and trite slogans like ensuring “a livable planet,” but concrete results. Instead of pouring resources into low-return climate projects, the World Bank, IMF and others should prioritize high-impact investments with proven returns.

In poor countries, 79 per cent of primary-school children — 334 million kids — fail to learn basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Teaching children at their own level using low-cost tablets and software costs just US$31 per child per year yet triples learning gains. The result: roughly US$2,000 in higher lifetime earnings per child. Every dollar invested delivers US$65 in social benefits.

Another high-impact area: reform of land tenure. Secure property rights let farmers invest in their land, access credit and boost productivity. Each dollar spent generates more than US$18 in social benefits.

Some health investments also have big impacts for relatively little cost. Fighting tuberculosis and malaria — two of the biggest killers in the developing world — can save more than a million lives with a few billion dollars. Each dollar invested returns more than US$45 in benefits through saved lives and higher productivity.

These are not abstract ideas. They are practical, high-return policies that directly address what the poor themselves prioritize. Development institutions often ignore that all decisions are about trade-offs and that they need to measure and weigh both the benefits and the costs of their policies. They should embrace the lessons their very own economists can provide and meet their duty to focus on genuine progress — growing economies, eradicating poverty and improving lives today — rather than indulging in expensive distractions.

The world’s poorest deserve better than virtue signalling from afar. The World Bank, the IMF, and the multilateral system need to get back to basics and deliver real development, not climate politics.

Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “False Alarm” and “Best Things First.”

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