foe groups put spotlight on climate impacts as ifi’s meet
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are well known for continuing the shameful practice of funding coal, oil and gas projects that fuel global warming, even in the face of their own April 2007 report that acknowledges climate change’s severe impacts on developing countries.The World Bank alone invests US$2 to 3 billion per year in coal, oil and gas projects which fuel climate change and fail to help the world’s poor.
So when the World Bank and IMF held their Spring Meeting in April, 2007, FoE groups came to Washington DC to demand that the world respond to the real needs and challenges that climate change poses to the world.
The groups held a climate conference on April 16, to drive home the impact of the harsh realities of global warming’s impact on the developing world. FoEI Chair Meena Raman from Malaysia spoke at the conference, while Congressman Edward Markey, US Chair of the House Select Committee on Energy delivered the keynote address. Speakers from the faith movement and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a taped address, emphasised the moral imperative to tackle global warming, while academic and NGO speakers covered impacts, development and resource challenges, and disaster, risk and humanitarian relief aspects (see conference agenda).
FoEI also challenged the World Bank’s 184 government shareholders to halt all funding for projects that contribute to climate change. FoEI climate campaigner Catherine Pearce said, "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."
Read our report: “How the World Bank Sells the Climate and Poor People Short”.
with thanks to our funders: the wallace global fund
