The World Bank Board ended its long-standing nuclear ban in June 2025, paving the way for financing nuclear power plants worldwide. Although the World Bank was never a major funder of nuclear energy, this shift symbolises something larger: a reversal in the position of the global finance architecture and its key sponsors.
The World Bank’s only direct loan to a nuclear power plant was in 1959, in Italy. The plant became operational in 1964 and was later shut down following a national referendum in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. The formal institutional ban on nuclear financing emerged later, when the International Finance Corporation added radioactive materials to its exclusion list. This followed the Fukushima disaster in 2011, after funders raised concerns about accident risks, complex procurement processes, and long-term waste management challenges.
