Over the course of its 75-year history, the World Bank has been the go-to organization for solving global crises: It was charged with rebuilding Europe after the Second World War, and then again with reconstructing Iraq and Afghanistan after they were invaded by the U.S. During the global economic downturn of the 1970s, it loaned poor countries millions of dollars with the stated purpose of ending third world poverty. And earlier this month, the institution was picked to manage one of the most monumental tasks of the century: dispensing climate reparations to the developing world.
The World Bank’s role managing this so-called loss and damage fund was formalized on the very first day of COP28, this year’s United Nations climate conference, which just concluded in the United Arab Emirates. The fund, which provides a trove of money for relatively…