Activists defy climate change conference in Amsterdam “Save our climate, not their oil profits”

PRESS RELEASE
13 october 2006
A SEED Europe, Friends of the Earth International, World Information Service on Energy, XminY Solidarity Fund

The conference, promoted by the World Bank, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell and Dutch Bank ABN-AMRO, takes place on October 16 and 17 at the Tuschinski Theater in Amsterdam.
The activists will express their disillusion with the conference, which they say will save corporate profits instead of helping fight global climate change. Starting at 2pm on October 16, a visually attractive open-air “Teach-In” will be staged in front of the Tuschinski Theater and focus on the malpractices of the institutions attending the conference.
How to use markets to reduce greenhouse gases is the main subject of the conference, entitled ‘Make Markets Work for Climate’. International financial institutions and energy corporations hope to find market-based solutions to fight climate change. Funding for nuclear energy and large-scale dam construction, and trading with greenhouse emissions are high on the agenda.
‘None of the solutions proposed at this conference will offer a real cure for climate change. On the contrary, they give no incentives for Northern countries to reduce their oil consumption and lower the level of greenhouse gases that cause climate change’, said Soile Koskinen of A SEED Europe.
Under the United Nations climate regime, Northern countries were granted pollution credits that they currently trade. ‘Northern governments are offering corporations and banks the opportunity to make profit out of trading invisible gases with poor countries. Instead, they should take responsibility for climate change and lower carbon dioxide emissions in their home country’ added Ms Koskinen.
‘Greenhouse gases are generated in the production cycle of nuclear energy as well. Moreover, we still face great environmental and safety risks in nuclear power plants operations’ said Peer de Rijk of the Amsterdam-based World Information Service on Energy (WISE).
‘Having displaced more than 40 million people, large hydropower dam projects are not a clean or renewable source of electricity. Dam-construction has led to irreversible loss of species and ecosystems and generates carbon dioxide emissions’, said Longgena Ginting of Friends of the Earth International. He added: ‘If the conference organizers are genuine about stopping climate change, they should stop funding oil, gas and coal-mining projects and redirect finance towards alternative sources of energy.’
The World Bank plays an important role in the climate change dialogue. The institution’s new “Clean energy and investment framework” draws upon nuclear and large-scale hydro-power energy generation as clean and beneficial for the climate. The Bank has been advocating carbon dioxide trading for more than ten years now. As a result, the institution has become the largest public broker of carbon purchases, with up to $1 billion in its carbon credit portfolio. At the same time, the Bank invests between $2 and $3 billion a year in greenhouse gas-generating projects, which ease climate change and hurt the world’s poor.
For more information:
Filka Sekulova +31 20-6682236, filka@aseed.net
Rabbe Dormans +31 6-55965136, rabbe @aseed.net
Longgena Ginting +31 6-42811585 ginting@foei.org
Peer de Rijk +31 6-20000626 wiseamster@antenna.nl

NOTES TO EDITORS
* Conference website: Make Markets Work for Climate: http://www.makemarketswork.com
*More information about the World Bank’s role is available in the new report ‘How the World Bank is selling the climate and poor people short’ by Friends of the Earth International and others: https://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/wbenergyreport.pdf
* Background information on carbon trading: “Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power”, Dag Hammarskj?ld Foundation, the Durban Group for Climate Justice, and The Corner House; http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk
* Background information on the conference, World Bank, emission trading and climate change: http://www.aseed.net/worldbank