By 2050, two-thirds of the planet's population will live in urban centers, and nearly 90 percentof the 2.5 billion new urban dwellers will live in Africa and Asia. The world's urban areas wereresponsible for around 70 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2013, and that numbercould grow...

Climate auctions are an innovative climate finance mechanism, with high potential to support nationally determined contribution (NDC) implementation and deepening through efficiently leveraging private investment. The World Bank has developed the climate auction model through the work of the...

This working paper commissioned by the World Bank Carbon Markets and Innovation Practice (GCCMI) critically examines experience with carbon markets under the Kyoto protocol. The de facto end of the Kyoto Protocol and heralding of the Paris Agreement era has created the space for critical...

The Paris Agreement introduced a bottom-up approach for addressing climate change by enabling countries to pledge individual commitments through nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Furthermore, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement recognizes that Parties may engage in bilateral cooperative...

This retrospective examines how the World Bank's strategic use of climate-related trust funds has enabled it to play an outsized role in catalyzing climate action worldwide for nearly 30 years. By looking back at the history of climate and carbon finance, with a focus on the pioneering role of...

Since its adoption in December 2015 by the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21), within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 175 countries to date have ratified the Paris Agreement. These countries have made commitments Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), in...

This report analyses options to make international public climate finance more transformative. The report identifies eight sets of levers to drive climate action: project-based investments, financial sector reform, fiscal policy, sectoral policies, trade policy, innovation and technology...

Thailand needs to avoid the high-carbon growth path of many developed countries and, instead, take a low-carbon growth path. A green low-carbon growth path is in Thailand's own interest as it can simultaneously tackle local environmental degradation, global climate change, and energy security...

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement requires countries to finance transformational changes with significant investments in both mitigation and resilience-building. International public climate finance with some degree of concessionality (i.e., climate finance) makes it possible to provide...