The world can fight poverty and climate change at the same time, but it will cost, according to the World Bank’s ‘World Development Report 2010.’

Poor countries will need nearly $500 billion annually by 2030 to both develop clean energy technologies across the world and cope with natural disasters, concluded the biennial global economic assessment.

The report calls on governments, research institutions and individuals to overcome a worldwide “inertia” that the authors argue has kept nations dependent on fossil fuel and too slow to muster the resources necessary to solve a problem many still see as distant.

“We are particularly good at acting on threats that can be linked to a human face, that present themselves as unexpected, dramatic or and immediate,” the report warns. “The slow pace of climate change as well as the delayed, intangible and statistical natures of its risks simply do not move us.”

Poor nations will bear between 75 and 80 percent of the cost of floods, increased desertification and other disasters caused by global warming, the report found. Countries in Africa and South Asia are slated to lose as much as 5 percent of their gross domestic product if temperatures rise just 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

It estimates that countries will need $75 billion annually for adaptation — things like wetland restoration or developing new crop strategies to help cope with warming temperatures. Nations would need another $500 billion annually for low-carbon technology development.

Click here for the full report.