[sustran] World Bank Under Fire for Role in New Global Green Fund

[Todd Edelman]

CLIMATE CHANGE
World Bank Under Fire for Role in New Global Green Fund
http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=55148

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Apr 6 (IPS) - The World Bank is facing mounting opposition from 
a broad network of green and grassroots activists over its role in a new 
global Green Climate Fund (GCF) aimed at helping developing countries 
combat the ravages of climate change.

"In spite of the climate and economic crises, the World Bank continues 
to finance fossil fuel projects at an alarming rate, promote false 
solutions to the climate crisis, and use funding instruments that 
increase indebtedness of developing countries," charged a coalition of 
nearly 100 local and international civil society organisations in a 
letter released here during on- going negotiations at the first of three 
U.N. climate change conferences to be held in the lead up to the Durban 
COP17 summit in late November.

"The World Bank is not suited to advise in the design of a fund that 
must ensure fair and effective long-term financing based on the 
principles of environmental integrity, equity, sustainable development 
and democracy," noted the two-page letter, whose signatories included 
global groups like Action Aid and International Rivers, regional groups 
like the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance and local groups like the 
Bolivian Climate Change Platform.

The letter was addressed to Patricia Espinosa, Mexico’s secretary of 
foreign affairs, and to Christina Figueres, the head of the Bonn-based 
climate change secretariat of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate 
Change (UNFCCC).

It was at last December’s UNFCCC summit in Cancun, Mexico that a 
landmark blueprint emerged creating the GCF, which is aimed at financing 
efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and to help 
communities adapt to the havoc created by climate change in the 
developing world.

The Bank was named as the new fund’s interim trustee for the first three 
years, until a more permanent financial architecture is built to steer 
much needed assistance to the world’s poorer nations.

A report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s climate financing 
advisory group released on the eve of the Mexico climate change summit 
estimated that 100 billion dollars a year is needed for climate change 
initiatives in the developing world.

Other estimates point to a higher figure - upwards of 400 billion 
dollars annually in the South - reveals the Jubilee South Asia-Pacific 
Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD), a regional network of 
grassroots activists.

The GCF has been mandated to start forking out these new funds by 2020, 
which, according to the UNFCCC, will take the form of grants or 
concessional loans.

But the Bank’s record of programmes under the guise of ‘development’ in 
the poorer nations makes it the wrong choice to play a permanent role in 
administering the GCF, says Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, convener of the Asian 
Indigenous Women’s Network, a regional grassroots group based in Manila. 
"They are not a trusted institution in the developing world."

"There is a fear among activists and some developing country governments 
that the Bank will secure approval to run the day-to-day operations of 
the GCF," Tauli-Corpuz told IPS. "That will result in more obstructions 
for the poor and the vulnerable victims of climate change."

"Climate finance is part of the reparations for climate debt owed by 
rich, industrialised countries to the peoples and countries of the 
South," argues Ahmed Swapan of JSAPMDD. "The climate debt must be 
collected, managed and disbursed by an institution that is democratic, 
accountable, transparent and governed by a board with a majority coming 
from [the] South."

Activists are concerned about a potential conflict-of-interest if the 
Bank secures the role as the secretariat of the GCF, since the 
Washington, D.C.- based multilateral financial institution will also 
have a part as a co-financier and implementer of projects.

As troubling is the Bank’s record in existing climate change funds, such 
as the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), which was established in 
1991 to help developing countries adapt to the challenges of climate 
change. "To get funds from the GEF, countries had to go through 
implementing agencies like the United Nations Development Programme 
(UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank," 
said Matthew Stilwell, policy adviser at the Institute for Governance 
and Sustainable Development, a Geneva-based think tank. "They had to 
jump through hoops, making it difficult to access funds."

Consequently, developing countries are "advocating for more direct 
access to the funds" of the GCF, Stilwell told IPS. "They have learnt 
lessons from the past."

But in the rooms of the U.N. conference centre here, where climate 
change negotiators from 190 countries are meeting from Apr. 3 - 8 to 
shape a new global environmental deal, the sources of funding for the 
GCF are also on the table.

"It will be new sources of funding," Jozsef Feiler, the chief climate 
change negotiator for Hungary, currently the president of the council of 
the European Union, told IPS.

Yet activists are not convinced, given suggestions by negotiators from 
the developed world that funding would be from a combination of public 
and private sector sources.

"Funding should be from public sources, new and additional to official 
development assistance," says Michelle Maynard of the Pan African 
Climate Justice Alliance. "The principles are simple: providing climate 
finance is a legal and moral obligation for rich countries."

(END/2011)

-- 

Todd Edelman
Green Idea Factory,
a member of the OPENbike team

Mobile: ++49(0)162 814 4081

edelman at greenidea.eu
www.greenidea.eu
todd at openbike.se
www.openbike.se

Skype: toddedelman

Urbanstr. 45
10967 Berlin
Germany

***

OPENbike - Share the Perfect Fit!