A welcome return to reality - World Bank chief Jim Young Kim now defends coal: "we’ve got to face this issue of people needing energy,”

Jim Young Kim: World Bank has to be "realistic about the cost of using renewable energy to meet the needs of poorer nations"

Remember when World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in November last year warned about a world "on track to a '4°C world' marked by extreme heat-waves and life-threatening sea level rise"?:

"A 4°C warmer world can, and must be, avoided – we need to hold warming below 2°C," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. "Lack of action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a completely different world than we are living in today. Climate change is one of the single biggest challenges facing development, and we need to assume the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations, especially the poorest."

Well, what a great pleasure it is now to welcome the same Jim Yong Kim back to the real world: 

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has defended the organisation’s investment in coal power plants.

In 2010 a third of the development bank’s $12bn energy budget was invested in fossil fuel power plants raising concerns about its commitment to climate action. --

He said he has instructed the bank’s employees to look for alternatives to coal but that it had to be realistic about the cost of using renewable energy to meet the needs of poorer nations – citing the funding of a new coal power plant in Kosovo. --

“We would certainly love to be able to move in the direction of having all of our investments go into renewable energy, but as I said, we’ve got to face this issue of people needing energy,” said Kim.

The next step for Kim is to make sure that the share of fossil fuel plants in the World Bank's energy budget grows from one third to at least two thirds. (The remaining third should cover nuclear power projects).