A new study released by an independent policy think tank casts further
doubts on the World Bank's ability to stay neutral in the global politics
of climate change.
"It is making money off of causing the climate
crisis and then turning around and claiming to solve it," charged
Janet Redman, the study's lead author and a researcher at the Institute
for Policy Studies.
In releasing the 79-page report Thursday,
Redman described the World Bank's role in the so-called carbon markets
as "dangerously counterproductive" to international efforts to tackle
climate change.
The report, entitled "World Bank: Climate Profiteer",
shows that instead of encouraging clean energy investors, the bank
is lending much of its financial support to the fossil fuel industry.
"It's playing both sides of the climate crisis," said Redman,
noting that in just past two years the bank loaned no less than 1.5
billion dollars to companies investing in fossil fuels.
"With
little transparency around its credits and no formal accounting for
its carbon debits that are accruing thanks to the World Bank loans,"
said Redman, "it is hard to say."
The study's findings show
that out of its two-billion-dollar carbon finance portfolio, the bank
has directed nearly 80 percent to projects involving the coal, chemical,
iron, and steel industries.
Among numerous other examples that
illustrate the bank's questionable practices, the report's authors
also mention its plans to fund a massive coal-fired power plant in
Mundra, a town in the Indian state of Gujarat.
The complex of
five 800-megawatt plants will cost 4.14 billion dollars to build,
and will be owned and operated by Tata Group, India's largest multinational
corporation.
Tata Motors, a division of the same conglomerate,
recently announced plans to buy the luxury car companies Jaguar and
Range Rover from U.S. automaker Ford for 2.3 billion dollars. Tata
Power's 2007 revenues totaled 1.6 billion dollars. "It's hard not
to ask how much help Tata needs from the World Bank," said Wysham.
