The World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim said that to achieve the climate change target, action is required in five areas.
In addition to slowing down growth in coal-fired power stations, Kim said climate ambition needed to be baked into development plans for every developing country.
It was important that the $90billion (£72billion) of planned infrastructure spending over the next 15 years was for low-CO2 and climate-resilient investment.
He called for the ramping up of energy-efficient appliances and less use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in air conditioning units. “Phasing down HFCs could prevent close to half a degree of global warming by the end of the century,” he said
Kim said countries in many parts of Africa, South Asia and Pacific Islands need more efficient water supply systems, climate-smart agriculture, early warning systems, better social protection and a reduction in disaster risk.
He said: “It is our collective responsibility to see the Paris agreement through. We cannot afford to lose the momentum. With each passing day, the climate challenge grows.”
“The longest streak of record-warm months has now reached 16 – such heat has never persisted on the planet for so long. The reality is stark. We have a planet that is at serious risk, but our current response is not yet equal to the task.”
Kim said The Paris Agreement (which is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dealing with green house gases emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020) will be a “victory for multilateral action and a powerful signal from all corners of the world that there can be no turning back”.