[BWP alert] Fuelling contradictions: the World Bank's energy lending and climate change

This paper examines recent World Bank lending to energy and energy-related infrastructure, including in response to the economic crisis. It identifies three major areas of concern: the continued dominance of fossil fuels within the World Bank's energy portfolio, which has been under-reported by the Bank; growing investments in coal power, which will lock developing countries into high-carbon energy for decades; and a tendency to support large-scale, export-oriented energy models, rather than those more directly related to the Bank's core mandate of reducing poverty and increasing access to energy. The paper then sets out key recommendations that would help ensure the World Bank could fulfil that mandate.

http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/fuellingcontradictions

This briefing can also be viewed as a PDF

http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/doc/env/fuelling_contradictions.pdf

This briefing is jointly published by the Bretton Woods Project, Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale and Urgewald.