Updated 10 01 2008
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Transitioning to a low-carbon economy:
World Bank-managed climate funds - transitioning to a "low carbon" global economy - are
Carbon offset ventures and represent greater than $2 billion in carbon finance portfolios.
Between 2005 and 2007 the Bank financed greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuel projects (coal, oil and gas) to the tune of $1.5 billion. At the same time the Bank acts as trustee to 10 greenhouse gas-reducing trust funds, pocketing an average 13% "overhead" in the process. That puts the Bank's slice of the pie at just about $260 million - half of the money expected to accrue by 2012 in the under-resourced United Nations Adaptation Fund, outlined during the recent international climate talks in Bali, to help developing countries cope with the unavoidable impacts of global climate shifts.
Current carbon trading deals, which "outsource" the work of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized northern countries to the global South where labor and technology are cheaper, reveals cause for concern - the Bank is supporting some of the most polluting industries in developing southern countries, while advancing little toward its goal of "reaching and benefiting the poorest communities of the developing world," in its carbon market work.
From liability to asset:
Through its Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) the Bank contracted to buy emissions reductions generated when 200 small brick-makers switch from coal-fired bricks to self-hardening fly ash bricks - made from the waste of some of the dirtiest industries in India. Besides fly ash, which is a radioactive byproduct of coal-fired power plants laden with heavy metals, the bricks' ingredients include lime, a waste product of acetylene production, and gypsum, a byproduct that fertilizer companies in India are under increasing pressure to dispose of safely. New revenue streams opened up by World Bank carbon finance create perverse incentives, benefiting fossil fuel dependent power plants and factories
The money used for carbon deals, is at least in part the money of Italian, Dutch, Spanish, and Danish tax payers. Held by the Bank as collateral; it is the land and labor of people in the global South, who are struggling for control over clean energy production and consumption.
1) The World bank must stop financing fossil fuels completely as recommended by the Bank's own Extractive Industries Review in 2004.
2) he World Bank would need to calculate the greenhouse gas footprint of all its public finance, and private investments that run through the public institution, and weigh the costs of climate change in deciding which projects to fund.
3) Donors should have the amount of greenhouse gases produced from projects they support "debited" against any emissions they hope to claim through offsetting.World Bank: Climate Profiteer, a report about the Bank's carbon-financing work.
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