The World Bank financed $31.7 billion in initiatives to combat and mitigate climate change in the fiscal year ending in June, up $19% from the previous year, a new record.

"The World Bank Group has secured a record $31.7 billion in fiscal 2022 to help countries deal with climate change, an increase of 19% from the $26.6 billion [26.3 billion euros], the largest amount ever, reached in the previous fiscal year," reads a statement from the multilateral financial institution quoted by Lusa.

"We will continue to provide solutions to pool funding from the global community to finance projects at scale and with impact that reduce environmentally harmful emissions, improve resilience, and make it easier for the private sector to act," World Bank President David Malpass commented, quoted in the statement.

The amounts in question were disbursed between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, representing 36% of the total funding given by the World Bank, which "exceeds the 2021 to 2025 Climate Change Action Plan, which called for 35% of all the bank's disbursements to be for climate action."