World Bank money is helping to finance Asia’s coal boom: report

(Eco Business, 21 Oct 2016) Should the World Bank Group be held accountable when financial institutions it supports invest in projects that threaten forests and communities? Activists who traced the Group's links to projects like the Rampal coal power station say “Yes.”

A coal boom in Asia could destroy any chances of meeting global climate goals, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim pronounced earlier this month at the Group’s annual meeting. “If all the new coal plants on the books earlier this year were constructed – especially in Asia – it would be impossible to stay below two degrees,” he said, referring to the temperature change target set in the Paris Agreement.

Slowing the growth of coal fired power plants is “perhaps the most urgent” task for global leaders trying to curb climate change, Kim said, emphasising the need for a “greener finance sector.” Since 2013, the World Bank Group limited its own financing of new coal projects to “rare circumstances.”

Meanwhile, according to a report led by US-based NGO Inclusive Development International, the Asian coal boom Kim describes as a “disaster” has been quietly enabled by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.

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Eco Business, 21 Oct 2016: World Bank money is helping to finance Asia’s coal boom: report