Oxfam response to World Development Report 2010

Responding to the publication of the World Development Report by the World Bank today, Antonio Hill, Oxfam International's Senior Climate Change Advisor said:

"The World Development Report highlights the win-win and lose-lose options now facing leaders of the rich industrialized world. Either get to grips with climate change and fight poverty by delivering significant new money to help poor people adapt to a changing climate and reduce their emissions. Or siit back and watch poverty and global temperatures spiral out of control.  The World Bank is clear that industrialized countries are currently en route to a lose lose scenario - they must turn it around when they meet in the US later this month."

The World Development Report 2010 addresses how the global response to climate change can strengthen, rather than undermine, development in the world's poorest countries. The report shows that developing countries will bear some 75 to 80 percent of the costs of damages caused by the changing climate. It states that "mitigation finance needed in developing countries could be around $400 billion a year by 2030. Current flows of mitigation finance averaging some $8 billion a year to 2012 pale in comparison. And the estimated $75 billion that could be needed annually for adaptation in developing countries dwarfs the less than $1 billion a year now available."