#david malpass

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

President Biden should work for the removal of the head of the World Bank, former Vice President Al Gore said on Tuesday, calling him a “climate denier” at an event coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly.

Hours later, David Malpass, the development bank’s president, defended his record on climate, but refused to say directly whether he accepted the scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is dangerously warming the planet.

Mr. Malpass called Mr. Gore’s remarks “very odd,” and noted that he was not a scientist himself when he declined to answer questions about whether he accepted climate science.

“What we need to do is move forward with impactful projects,” Mr. Malpass said.

Both men were part of separate panel discussions at a climate change event organized by The New York Times.

Mr. Gore said that Mr. Malpass, who was nominated to lead the World Bank by former President Donald J. Trump in 2019, had been unable to improve access to financing for developing countries to take on climate projects, a concern he has expressed before.

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Speaking onstage during a discussion about climate finance, Mr. Malpass was asked to respond to a remark made earlier in the day by former Vice President Al Gore, who called the World Bank president a “climate denier.” Pressed three times, Mr. Malpass would not say whether he accepted that man-made greenhouse gas emissions had created a worsening crisis that is already leading to more extreme weather.

“I’m not a scientist,” he said.

Mr. Malpass’s appearance on Tuesday caused an international fracas. By Thursday, he was working feverishly to restate his views on climate change amid widespread calls for his dismissal.

In an interview on CNN International on Thursday morning, Mr. Malpass said he accepted the overwhelming scientific conclusion that human activity is warming the planet.

“It’s clear that greenhouse gas emissions are coming from man-made sources, including fossil fuels,” he said. “I’m not a denier.”

He also sent a memo Thursday to World Bank staff members, which was obtained by The New York Times, in which he wrote “it’s clear that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing climate change, and that the sharp increase in the use of coal, diesel, and heavy fuel oil in both advanced economies and developing countries is creating another wave of the climate crisis.”

Dans un contexte de tensions géopolitiques croissantes et de perturbations des chaînes d’approvisionnement mondiales, l’ancien président de la Banque mondiale, David Malpass, a vivement critiqué la politique chinoise d’accumulation de réserves alimentaires et d’engrais. Intervenant à la veille du sommet Trump-Xi à Pékin, il a appelé Pékin à cesser de gonfler ses stocks pour contribuer à alléger…

My first encounter with USAID was in a Ghanaian marketplace.   This was during the famine there that followed the 1981 revolution.   At the time, we had eaten most of our food reserves, so I went to the market to see what was there.   I came across rice, sacks of the stuff that were being sold to anybody. Well, almost anybody.  Anybody with 50 cedis, the Ghanaian currency.  This was back in 1982…

WASHINGTON: The World Bank’s 25-member executive board on Wednesday elected former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga to a five-year term as president, effective June 2, the bank said, ushering in an Indian-born finance and development expert charged with revamping the lender to tackle climate change and other global crises.Banga, 63, was nominated for the post by U.S. President Joe Biden in late February…

Kalyeena Makortoff at The Guardian: 

World Bank staff were apparently told to give preferential treatment to the son of a high-ranking Trump administration official after the US Treasury threw its support behind a $13bn (£10bn) funding increase for the organisation, a leaked recording suggests.

Shared with the Guardian by a whistleblower, the recording of a 2018 staff meeting suggests colleagues were encouraged by a senior manager to curry favour with the son of David Malpass, who is now president of the World Bank but at the time was serving in the US Treasury under Donald Trump.

During the recording, which has left the Washington-based organisation facing questions over standards of governance, staff refer to 22-year-old Robert Malpass as a “prince” and “important little fellow”, who could go “running to daddy” if things went wrong.

Campaigners said the case could undermine the World Bank’s mission, which includes combating the erosion of public trust in civic institutions by promoting good governance.

Staff were apparently told Robert was the son of the undersecretary of the US Treasury, which had played a “beneficial” role in helping the World Bank secure an endorsement for the multibillion-dollar capital injection.

The recordings also suggest it may not have been the first time the international development bank had hired a family member of an important global figure. “Remember we had a ‘prince’ before … that is a subject for happy hour,” a staff member is heard saying.

The World Bank said it could not confirm the contents of the recording, but added it was “both false and absurd” to suggest that there was any connection between an entry-level hire and the multibillion-dollar capital increase.

The findings raise concerns over internal standards at the World Bank Group (WBG), which is governed by high-ranking officials from across its 189 member states, and is holding its spring meeting alongside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington this week.

It will also raise further concerns over David Malpass’s term as World Bank president. The economist announced his early resignation in February, months after he controversially failed to say whether he accepted that fossil fuels were causing the climate crisis.