World Bank chief says global warming threatens the planet and the poorest World Bank president Jim Yong Kim on Tuesday called global warming "a fundamental threat" to world economic development and announced plans to put the issue at the center of bank planning. In a call for action to end extreme poverty among hundreds of millions of people worldwide by 2030, Kim said that central to that aim is ensuring that global temperatures don't rise faster than expected. "If we do not act to curb climate change immediately, we will leave our children and grandchildren an unrecognizable planet," Kim said. His comments reflect a turn by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund toward greater participation in the climate change debate. The effects of a warming planet are expected to fall most heavily on the poor in countries least able to cope. The World Bank has announced a goal to reduce the number of people living on an estimated $1.25 per day from 21 percent of the world - some 1.3 billion people - to 3 percent in the next 17 years.