More than 120 environment and development groups have questioned the credibility of proposed World Bank funds to help the poor fight global warming, even as the UN's climate change agency broadly welcomed them.

Last month 40 developing and industrialized countries agreed on two separate multi-billion dollar funds, managed by the World Bank and regional development banks, one to help developing countries cut their contribution to climate change and the other to help them prepare better for more storms and floods.

The NGOs doubted the World Bank's qualifications to fund projects which curb carbon emissions given its history of loans to coal plants, including one this year to an Indian plant which will use the latest, cleanest boilers.

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