At World Bank Climate Talk, Speaker Floats Idea To End Conventional Vehicle Sales

In remarks to the World Bank’s “Financing Climate Action” event on April 21, Baron Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s most influential climate economists, spoke about what he sees as necessary global actions on climate change, including on the sale of conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

“The right kind of policies have to be put in place, including the abolition of fossil fuel subsidies, the advancement of carbon pricing, but clarity on timescales for decentralization of the grid, clarity on timescales for stopping the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles, and so on—making sure the sense of direction is clear in those ways,” said Stern, who served as chief economist for the World Bank from 2000 through 2003.

The World Bank—a multilateral group founded in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and headquartered in Washington, D.C.—lends to poor and middle-income countries. Its private-sector lending is coordinated through a subsidiary, the International Finance Corporation.

The discussion was part of the annual spring meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Stern chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Economics at the London School of Economics, founded by members of the socialist Fabian Society in the 1890s, thanks in part to a bequest from a wealthy Fabian “for propaganda and other purposes.” – READ MORE