The transformation that is required at the World Bank will not be easy.

But the
departure of its former president, David Malpass, who says he will resign in June,
might help build confidence in the bank’s climate work. Mr. Malpass, who was
nominated by the Trump administration in 2019, has been the subject of controversy
since his bewildering public refusal last year to acknowledge the role of human
activity in extreme weather resulting from climate change.

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Ajay Banga, the former chief executive of Mastercard, is President Biden’s nominee
to lead the bank, and is likely to be confirmed next month. The leadership change
presents an opportunity to clarify the bank’s role and lay out an ambitious vision
for its future. Mr. Banga, who has recently visited several African countries, has
said that he sees the bank’s goals of addressing poverty, shared growth and climate
as “intertwined.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who has been at the forefront of calls to overhaul
the bank and to elevate the issue of climate, also noted the need for more
concessional financing in a recent speech at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. The bank was designed to lend to individual countries to
spur economic growth within their own borders, but that model doesn’t work to
address global problems like climate change, she said, because the benefits
“stretch far beyond the borders of the country where a given project takes place.”

If the benefits of investing in climate change adaptation and mitigation are

shared, so should the costs.