press release
friends of the earth international
international rivers network
world bank misses double dividend on
poverty and climate change
WASHINGTON DC (US), 23 April 2006--
According to International Rivers Network and
Friends of the Earth International, the
investment framework on energy and
development approved by the World Bank’s
Development Committee today fails to address
climate change and reduce poverty.
Aviva Imhof, campaigns director of
International Rivers Network, comments:
"The Development Committee today approved
a business-as-usual plan that will fail the
poor and fail the climate. Governments and
the World Bank should massively increase
their funding for energy efficiency and
renewable technologies like wind, solar,
efficient biomass and mini hydro. Such
technologies bring a double dividend of
combating climate change and reducing
poverty.”
Janneke Bruil, IFI program coordinator of
Friends of the Earth International, says:
"The investment framework that the
Development Committee approved today lets
Northern governments off the hook. Rather
than promoting more destructive large dams,
coal, oil and nuclear power projects in the
global South, Northern governments should
clean up their own act and reduce emissions
at home. We don’t see how the poor or the
global climate will truly benefit from the
World Bank’s new energy plans.”
Background:
The Development Committee today discussed
the World Bank report, Clean Energy and
Development: Towards an Investment Framework.
The report contains the following fundamental
flaws:
-
The World Bank approach will not
achieve poverty reduction:
Nearly 1.6 billion people do not have
access to electricity. Most of them live in
rural areas, and many of them are not
connected to electric grids. An approach that
concentrates on centralized, grid-based power
plants will not reach these people.
Decentralized, renewable sources of energy
such as wind, mini-hydro, solar photovoltaics
and biogas are often the least-cost solutions
for off-grid areas.
The World Bank’s proposed Investment
Framework gives short shrift to such
solutions. It focuses on large-scale
projects, including coal, large dams and
nuclear power. The World Bank report admits
that “renewable energy technologies – wind,
mini-hydro, and biomass-electric – are the
least-cost option for off-grid
electrification applications” (p. 91), but
does not propose any additional funding for
such options.
-
The World Bank approach does not
appropriately address climate change:
Combating climate change is primarily the
responsibility of the North. Per capita, poor
countries use only 5% of the modern energy
services consumed by the industrialized
countries. Meeting the basic human needs for
electricity of all the 1.6 billion people who
presently have no access to modern energy
would only increase global carbon emissions
by 2%.
Effectively combating climate change
primarily requires action in the North,
including much deeper emissions reductions
under the second commitment period of the
Kyoto Protocol. The World Bank claims that
its paper “takes a global perspective and is
not Bank-centric” (p. 1). Yet its
recommendations fail to address the
responsibility of the North, and do not call
for any commitments under the Kyoto Protocol
post-2012. In addition, the framework does
not address the need to phase out subsidies
for export-oriented oil, coal and gas
projects.
-
Large dams – no solution to the world’s
climate problems:
In addition to promotion of coal and
nuclear power, the Bank’s paper proposes
large dams as a central pillar of its new
Investment Framework, particularly for
Brazil, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It
ignores the following lessons of hydropower
development:
-
Most large dams have massive social and
environmental impacts, but hardly benefit
the poor in off-grid areas.
-
Many large reservoirs cause significant
greenhouse gas emissions. The World Bank’s
Nam Theun 2 Project has the potential to
release roughly the same amount of
greenhouse gases as a combined cycle
natural gas project generating the same
amount of electricity.
-
Since global warming is worsening
droughts, increasing dependency on large
hydro increases the risk of power cuts and
the vulnerability of poor countries’
economies to climate change.
for more information
Aviva Imhof, IRN, aviva@irn.org, mobile +1
510 717 4745
Janneke Bruil, Friends of the Earth
International, email: janneke@foei.org,
mobile +1 202 492 2155 (until Apr 25
only)
'Business as Usual Will Not Achieve
Climate and Development Goals', a critique of
the World Bank’s new investment framework
prepared by International Rivers Network,
available at
www.irn.org/programs/finance/index.php?id=060414critique.html
.
Previous release:
http://www.foei.org/media/2006/0419.html
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