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from website of Friends of the Earth, FOE.co.uk

Gordon Brown's climate opportunity - World Bank Spring Meetings

April 2006

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown will be in Washington this week to call on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to introduce a new US$20 billion World Bank fund to help developing countries invest in alternative energy sources in order to combat climate change. But Friends of the Earth has warned that the World Bank's Spring Meeting still looks set to steer energy policy in the wrong direction.

A new report, presented by the World Bank and IMF last week, to be adopted at the Spring Meetings on April 22 and 23, acknowledges the severe impacts of climate change on developing countries but still puts forward plans to invest in fossil fuel projects.

The Group of Eight (G8) richest nations at their Gleneagles Summit last July invited the World Bank to propose a plan for a sustainable energy future and to accelerate investment in these technologies. Gordon Brown proposed the US$20 billion fund for clean energy in his Budget speech to the Commons on 22 March.

The World Bank's `Clean Energy and Development: Towards An Investment Framework,' report acknowledges that just the cost of adapting to climate change is likely to be between 10 and 40 billion dollars per year. But instead of responding to those needs, the World Bank plans to continue funding substantial amounts of dirty fossil fuel projects. In 2005, only 10 per cent of the Bank's energy financing went to renewable energy or energy efficiency.

Friends of the Earth International's Climate Campaigner Catherine Pearce said:

"The proposals being put forward by the World Bank show a lack of ambition in developing clean energy projects and fail to re-direct financing away from existing fossil fuel sources. Most crucially they will not deliver sustainable energy to the two billion people who currently do not have access to a power supply.

"The World Bank seems to be more interested in the most environmentally and socially damaging projects, such as nuclear, large dams and so-called 'clean coal'. It is widely understood

that these technologies will not help to bring people out of poverty, which is the World Bank's core mission."

She added:

"Gordon Brown and the UK Government need to do more than call for more funding through the G8. The G8 currently releases 45 per cent of global emissions. They are also the main players in the World Bank. It is time they set their own house in order and established a clear plan for reducing emissions in industrialised countries. They could make a significant contribution to the fight against climate change, and must also do more to support the poorest and most vulnerable, who are disproportionately affected by its impacts."

The Bank is proposing to combine efforts under the framework on both alternative energy sources and adaptation to climate change. Rich countries urgently need to step forward to provide resources for sustainable energy services and, separately, to help the most vulnerable communities and countries adapt to climate change. A combination of the two implies that similar funding mechanisms are being considered. For an equitable approach to climate change, Friends of the Earth believes a separate funding system for adaptation would be required.

Two billion people currently have no access to energy services. Friends of the Earth is calling for the Introduction of clean, affordable, decentralised renewable energy services which can help alleviate poverty, reduce regional and local air and water pollution, generate jobs and income and empower local communities.

Funded energy projects should be subject to input and approval by local communities, should be carried out by appropriate institutions that will be responsive to civil society, and should have clear, ambitious commitments with targets and timetables, the organisation said.

Friends of the Earth campaigners from Asia, Africa, Central America and Europe, are in Washington DC April 19-26 to demand that the World Bank and the US Congress respond to the real needs and challenges that climate change poses to the world.