Finance and Climate Change in 2008
Preventing the World Bank from contaminating the climate change agenda
- December 2008: Climate talks in Poznan, Poland
- October 2008: World Bank annual meeting addressed in Washington, Amsterdam and Jakarta
- August 2008: FoEI at the UN Climate Talks in Accra
- July 2008: What happened at the G8 meeting in Japan?
world oil bank
The World Bank is setting itself up to become the world's climate banker. But at the same time, the World Bank is the largest multilateral lender for oil and gas projects and a major deforester, fueling climate change.
The World Bank spends some $1 billion per year on the oil and gas industry. And these projects don’t increase poor people’s access to energy. More than 80% of all oil projects financed by the World Bank are for export back to wealthy Northern countries. Meanwhile, pollution and social conflicts surround these projects.
Despite all of these controversies, the institution attempts to regain relevance in the global arena. It is now promoting itself as a major actor in the fight against climate change. The Bank has started various initiatives ranging from carbon financing facilities and climate investment funds to a strategic framework on climate and development.
The world bank's climate funds are likely to:
1. increase the global South’s debt burden and force them to pay for the climate crisis that they are not responsible for;
2. place the last remaining forests in so called 'carbon offset schemes', which would undermine Indigenous Peoples’ land rights and do nothing to reduce emissions;
3. finance a version of “clean technology” that includes dirty coal, agrofuels and large hydro dams;
4. dramatically undermine United Nations climate talks.
read more: why the world bank's climate plans are not a good idea
- Article on forests, trade and climate change, by FoEI's Joseph Zacune
- Poverty, Climate and Energy: the case against oil aid
- FoE US webpage on The World Bank's Climate Investment Funds
- More on public finance for fossil fuels
- FoEI climate program
Voices from communities affected by climate change
Other resources
- Third World Network: No Additionality, New Conditionality: A Critique of the World Bank's Climate Investment Funds
- Sustainable Energy and Economy Network: World Bank: Climate Profiteer
- End Oil Aid Coalition: Aiding Oil, Harming the Climate
- Bretton Wood Project: World Bank climate funds: A huge leap backwards
- Bank Information Center: World Bank’s lending for fossil fuel skyrockets as it positions itself as the “climate bank”
World Bank links
- Global Consultations: Towards a Strategic Framework on Climate Change and Development for the World Bank Group
- Proposed Climate Investment Funds (CIF)
Protest at the launch of the World Bank's forest carbon facility, Bali 2007
