World Bank President Considers Climate Change a Top Priority. (October 17, 2012)

Jim Yong Kim, took over the presidency of the World Bank on July 1. Last week while overseeing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group Annual Meetings this week in Tokyo he told those present:  "Since becoming president of the World Bank, I have looked deeply into the data on climate change, and I have to say I was surprised that even in the last 6 months to a year, the data has become ever more frightening. As a scientist, I feel a moral responsibility to be very clear in communicating the dangers of climate change... I think the question we have to ask ourselves is not simply is climate change real or not, I think we have to begin looking hard at what the world is going to look like for our children... We have to encourage the best and brightest companies and countries to seize opportunities and understand that their path to economic growth could very well be engaging in finding new technologies and new approaches of mitigating climate change."

Professor Kim, a Korean-American physician and anthropologist was President of Dartmouth College from 2009 to 2012 and previously held the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

In addition to his proactive concern regarding global warming Professor Kim asks: "What can we do to fundamentally change the arc of history to end absolute poverty more quickly than is currently predicted." and went on to predict that when next the annual meeting of the World Bank and IMF takes place he intends to set a "reasonable and audacious" target for ending world poverty.