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Al Gore calls on World Bank to reject 'fossil fuel colonialism'

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November 15, 2022

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said the World Bank, an international financial institution under the United Nations, needs to reform by ending its role in "fossil fuel colonialism." He claims the bank can do this within a year, according to a report by The Guardian.

"I don't know why it need take longer than a year," Gore told the news outlet. "We have an emergency on our hands."

Gore has accused the bank of a lack of vision and taking part in a race for gas in Africa. For example, developing countries often have to face a high cost of capital with renewable energy, whereas fossil fuel financing is cheaper.

He also claimed the bank's president, David Malpass, is a climate change denier who should be removed from his position.

Gore said Malpass "has been a climate denier for quite a long time. He ran for Congress as a climate denier. He's made multiple statements over the years making it clear that he just has serious doubts that the climate crisis is real."

Malpass has denied the charges. In a speech at Stanford University in September, he said "Manmade greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, which in turn is having tragic impacts on development in multiple ways."

Gore, in turn, sees the issue as bigger than Malpass.

"The World Bank has tacitly supported this fossil fuel colonialism, and has utterly failed to take those top layers of risk off the stack to enable developing countries to finance the energy transition," Gore told the news outlet. "And if the World Bank, and the other multilateral development banks, won't do it, it won't be done."