At COP30, world leaders intensified demands for the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to fundamentally rethink their lending models, arguing that current systems are too slow and too limited to meet escalating climate threats. Developing nations — already facing worsened floods, droughts, heatwaves, and soaring fossil-fuel costs — stressed that outdated lending practices are preventing them from investing in clean energy and climate resilience. Negotiators emphasised that unless MDBs rapidly scale up and simplify climate finance, the world will fall further behind on the goals of the Paris Agreement.
In response, MDBs announced a package of reforms aimed at speeding up approvals, reducing bureaucratic hurdles, and mobilising far greater private investment. They committed to using new climate- and nature-finance metrics, expanding funding for adaptation, biodiversity and resilience, and improving flexibility for vulnerable nations. A major pledge includes mobilising US $185 billion in finance by 2030 from both public and private channels — signalling that banks recognise the urgency to evolve as climate disasters intensify and financial needs soar. More