NEW YORK — Once the coal-fired Medupi Power Station in Lephalale, South Africa, is fully operational in 2015, it will emit 26 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. And when the Tata Ultra Mega plant in western India is fully serviceable in 2012, its annual carbon dioxide emissions are expected to total 23.4 million tons.

Both plants, which will rank among the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gases — together producing about as much carbon dioxide as nations like Ireland and Norway — are being built thanks to more than $4 billion in financing from the World Bank.

The amount of money that the World Bank is lending for fossil fuel energy projects like these — for coal in particular — is rising faster than ever, even though it said only two years ago in a policy document that climate change posed one of the greatest threats to development in poor countries.

According to the Bank Information Center, a Washington-based watchdog group, World Bank group funding for fossil fuel projects reached a record $6.3 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June, up from $1.6 billion in fiscal 2007. Funding for coal projects in 2010 was $4.4 billion, also a record, the group said.