Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rattled climate watchers this week by publicly questioning the scientific consensus on why the planet is warming, telling a Washington finance forum that “we are going through cycles.” The comments, delivered on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings, fold into a broader Treasury push to strip climate targets out of multilateral lending. With energy prices spiking and the World Bank’s main climate plan nearing its expiration date, advocates say the stakes could hardly be higher.
Reporters in the room picked up the exchange and the line that sparked the loudest reaction. The New York Times reported that Bessent told an Institute of International Finance panel that "it is very difficult to deconstruct the reasons around why anything changes." A separate statement from the U.S. Department of the Treasury laid out the department's position that the World Bank should drop a 45% climate co‑benefits financing target and instead "finance all affordable and reliable sources of energy, including gas, oil and coal."
What He Said at the Forum
At the Institute of International Finance event, Bessent cast resilience as something that flows from prosperity and took aim at long‑range forecasting, a framing that climate reporters say plays down the well‑established role of greenhouse‑gas emissions in driving global warming. Inside Climate News noted that Bessent characterized climate concern as an "elite belief" while pressing multilateral lenders to focus on growth and basic energy access instead.
Why the World Bank Fight Matters
The World Bank’s current Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), which has been extended through June 30, 2026, sets how much of the Bank’s lending counts as delivering climate co‑benefits and steers billions of dollars in projects across the developing world. The World Bank and development reporters say that if the Bank drops or weakens its co‑benefits targets, it could reshape which projects get funded and slow access to money for both climate mitigation and adaptation. Devex reported this week that U.S. pressure to scale back the CCAP is among the most consequential fights unfolding at the spring meetings.
Experts and Advocates React
Climate advocates argued the timing was particularly reckless amid an energy shock already battering low‑income countries. "It is beyond absurd that, in the middle of an escalating oil crisis, a World Bank meeting could sideline talk of climate change," Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, told The Guardian. Other analysts warned that pulling the Bank’s focus away from climate could lock vulnerable nations into higher‑emissions infrastructure just as adaptation costs are climbing. Commentators and climate newsrooms, including The New York Review of Books, also pointed out that the administration’s drive to prioritize fossil‑fuel‑heavy energy mixes tracks with recent federal rollbacks and policy shifts that favor oil and gas.
What Comes Next
The CCAP decision, and any formal change to how the Bank counts climate co‑benefits, will be taken by Bank management and shareholders in the coming weeks, with U.S. officials openly pressing governors and staff to reweight priorities. A statement from the U.S. Department of the Treasury makes clear that Washington intends to use its clout as a major shareholder to reshape lending, a showdown that is likely to spill into public view through June and beyond. For finance teams in climate‑vulnerable cities and low‑income countries, the result will help decide how quickly they can tap money for both resilience projects and low‑carbon transitions.
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