Climate-Change Colonialism Keeps Poor Countries Impoverished (Bjorn Lomborg)

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Development agencies fund green projects when people need jobs, food and energy.

At the latest United Nations climate summit, developing nations slammed rich countries’ pledge to spend $300 billion annually on climate reparations as “crumbs.” The reality is much worse. Wealthy nations likely won’t conjure up $300 billion in new spending. Europe has been roiled by protests against radical climate policies and the 2024 U.S. election was an indictment of, among other things, aggressive climate regulations. Instead, wealthy nations will do what they’ve done before: raid development funds to the detriment of the people they claim to help.

Members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development currently spend $223.7 billion a year trying to do good in poor countries through bilateral and multilateral aid and development spending. It is politically much easier for politicians intent on green spending to shift this money to climate purposes than try to get voters to go along with fresh outlays. Rich nations have diverted much of this funding to climate-change initiatives. OECD members spent one-third of their direct development aid on climate in fiscal 2021-22, the most recent year for which data are available. Development banks have twisted their purpose even further: The World Bank last year sent 44% of its lending to climate causes, the African Development Bank 55% and the European Investment Bank 60%.

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