In Year Ending 6/10, World Bank Provided 40X Coal Funding Of Previous 5 Yrs, Now Wants To "Reform"

[hatrack]

The World Bank is planning to restrict the money it gives to coal-fired power stations, bowing to pressure from green campaigners to radically revise its funding rules. The new proposals would not mean an end to funding for fossil fuels, but would represent a departure from previous regulations. Under these rules, the bank has provided sizeable financial support for coal-fired power stations in the developing world in spite of protests from governments and green groups.

EDIT

The bank spent £3.4bn – one-quarter of all its spending on energy projects – on coal-fired power in developing countries in the year to June 2010. That was 40 times more than the sum spent five years previously.

Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, has frequently spoken out in public about the need to realign the institution's funding criteria with its climate change goals. The World Bank is also one of the world's biggest funders of low-carbon energy generation, but critics complain that there has been a lack of a coherent, institution-wide strategy on energy funding to date.

The bank has also been attacked for its attempts to take over the international funding of climate change projects. Under the 2009 Copenhagen accord, the bank could be charged with dispensing the billions of funding that rich countries are due to send to poor countries, in order to help them cope with the effects of climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/04/world-bank-funding-coal-power

[Nihil]

1. Fits the pattern ...

> The bank spent £3.4bn – one-quarter of all its spending on energy projects
> – on coal-fired power in developing countries in the year to June 2010.
> That was 40 times more than the sum spent five years previously.

> The new proposals would not mean an end to funding for fossil fuels

> The World Bank is planning to restrict the money it gives to coal-fired
> power stations

1) Knowingly do the wrong thing.

2) Cash in.

3) Publicly step back a fraction when the pressure starts to mount.

4) Spend the profits.

5) Rinse & repeat