Climate change persists as a global issue demanding coordinated efforts for mitigation and adaptation. Global and regional organizations play pivotal roles in establishing the financial framework for these efforts. Operating at different levels with distinct challenges and opportunities, how do they coordinate their profiles? This paper explores whether global entities leverage their extensive expertise or if regional bodies hold an advantage due to their size and democratic decision-making mechanisms by comparing the climate financing policies and instruments of the World Bank (WB) and the European Union (EU).
Both organizations assert themselves as major players in international climate finance. The WB's engagement dates back to its 1992 World Development Report and its evolving environmental assessment capacity since 1989. Priding itself as the "knowledge bank," the WB pledges sector-specific policy recommendations and adaptation financing. In contrast, the EU, a relatively recent actor in development aid, has assumed a more independent role in the last two decades. Embracing the climate crisis as an opportunity, the EU and its lending arm, the European Investment Bank (EIB), rebranded themselves as the "climate bank." This shift positions the EU in direct competition with the WB in climate financing. The paper tracks the advocated policies and their implementations through discourse and citation analyses, revealing shared and unique challenges for global and regional organizations. Crafting development-friendly climate financing is a common challenge, while navigating intergovernmentalism poses a distinct obstacle for the EU.
