World Bank To Fund Only Double Secret Probation Coal Projects; Other FF Projects A-OK
The World Bank will invest heavily in clean energy and only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need” because climate change will undermine efforts to eliminate extreme poverty, says its President Jim Yong Kim. Talking ahead of a U.N. climate summit in Peru next month, Kim said he was alarmed by World Bank-commissioned research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, which said that as a result of past greenhouse gas emissions the world is condemned to unprecedented weather events.
“The findings are alarming. As the planet warms further, heat waves and other weather extremes, which today we call once-in-a-century events, would become the new climate normal, a frightening world of increased risk and instability. The consequences for development would be severe, as crop yields decline, water resources shift, communicable diseases move into new geographical ranges, and sea levels rise,” he said.
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Climate change posed a substantial risk to development and cutting poverty, the report said, adding that action on emissions need not come at the expense of economic growth. But the bank made no commitment to cut funding for oil or other fossil fuel exploration. Analysis earlier this year by Washington-based NGO Oil Change International showed that the bank had funded $21 billion of fossil fuel projects since 2008, including $1 billion of oil and other fossil fuel exploration in 2013.
“The bank has taken an important first step in essentially stopping its support for coal-fired power plants, but climate change is caused by more than just coal,” said Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International. “The vast majority of currently proven fossil fuel reserves will need to be left in the ground if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, but last year the bank provided nearly $1 billion in support for finding more of these unburnable carbon reserves.”
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