Face the Facts! 5 - Actions Don't Match Words on Climate Change
How the Global Economy Harms People and the Environment
#5, Wednesday April 7, 1999
Actions Don’t Match Words on Climate Change
- The Senate has asked for "new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties" in order for the Climate Change Treaty to be ratified (Byrd-Hagel Resolution). The White House says it wants "meaningful participation" of developing countries to solve this problem. However, the facts reveal that public dollars are being used to fuel the release of more greenhouse gases in developing countries, only adding to global climate change problems.
- Between 1992 and 1998 the World Bank Group spent $12.4 billion on fossil fuel projects that will release 36.5 billion tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere over the life of the projects. For the sake of comparison, this is more than three times the annual fossil fuel emissions of all countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) combined (11 billion tons of CO 2 ).*1
- Since the Earth Summit in 1992, nearly one in five World Bank fossil fuel dollars promoted coal and diesel-fired power plants in China.*2
- The Global Climate Coalition (GCC), led by Exxon, lobbied for Senate approval of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution and developing country commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Soon thereafter, speaking at the 15th World Petroleum Congress in Beijing, Exxon Chairman Lee Raymond urged China to use even more fossil fuels.*3
- While it acknowledges the problem of
climate change, the World Bank remains
irresolute in its commitment to halt it, by
refusing to commit a significant amount of
its lending to renewable energy.*4
*1 Sustainable Energy and Econonmy Network Report/Institute for Policy Studies.
*2 Ibid.
*3 Text of 15 th World Petroleum Congress.
*4 In Benchmarks for Mainstreaming the Environment: Environmental Reform Recommendations for the World Bank Group, environmental groups called for the World Bank to shift 20% of its energy portfolio toward renewable energy lending; see also World Bank Energy and Environment Strategy.
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