Earth Equity News

Despite Talk, World Bank Continues to Finance Massive Carbon-Spewers. By Christopher Swann, Bloomberg News, August 11, 2008. "A year after World Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged to 'significantly step up our assistance' in fighting climate change, the development institution is increasing its financing of fossil-fuel projects around the globe. [For example, once] the $4.14 billion, coal-powered Ultra Mega plant [in western India -- which the World Bank helped to finance with $450 million in loans and guarantees and, now possibly, a $50 million ownership stake -- is fully operational, it] will emit more CO2 annually than the nation of Tunisia... 'The World Bank's lending record does not match up to Zoellick's rhetoric,' says Heike Mainhardt-Gibbs, a consultant to the Bank Information Center, a Washington watchdog group. 'The institution is simply not slowing down its significant funding [of] fossil-fuel projects...' The reason: ...such plants offer the speediest economic payoffs, helping fulfill the bank's mandate to battle deprivation and refill its coffers so it can lend more... '[Increasing access to energy in impoverished countries] just with renewable sources is not feasible,' [says Somit Varma of the Bank's] oil, gas, mining and chemicals department]. ...The recipient of the World Bank Group's coal-power loan, Tata Power, is the biggest electricity generator in India that's not under state control... [with] a stock-market value of $5.5 billion, and... shares [that] have increased more than six-fold over the past five years. In the year ended March 31, the company reported net earnings of $206 million, up 25% from the year before. World Bank critics say funding for Tata Ultra and other energy projects -- including $300 million for the privatization of a coal-fired Calaca Power plant in the Philippines and $50 million to Salamander Energy for oil and gas exploration in Southeast Asia -- sacrifice air and water quality for revenue."