World Bank to fund coal projects only in “extreme need”
President Jim Yong Kim confirms the World Bank will invest in clean energy and will only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need” as climate change will undermine efforts to reduce poverty
In preparation for the UN climate summit in Peru next month, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the bank will invest in clean energy and will only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need” as climate change will undermine the efforts to reduce poverty.
Kim expressed his alarm at the results os a recent study conducted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
My Kim said: "The findings are alarming. As the planet warms further, heatwaves and other weather extremes, which today we call once-in-a-century events, would become the new climate normal, a frightening world of increased risk and instability. The consequences for development would be severe, as crop yields decline, water resources shift, communicable diseases move into new geographical ranges, and sea levels rise".
However, the World Bank are one of the world’s largest funders of fossil fuel projects which has only added to the climate issues, as they cannot ignore the developing country’s need for development.
Kim said: "We are going to have to focus all of our energy to move toward renewable and cleaner forms of energy. But on the other hand we believe very strongly that the poorest countries have a right to energy and that we not ask these energy poor countries to wait until there are ways of ensuring that solar and wind power can provide the kind of base load that all countries need in order to industrialise".
Rachel Kyte, the Vice President for World Bank Group, said: "It will only be in circumstances of extreme need that we would contemplate doing coal again. We would only contemplate doing [it] in the poorest of countries where their energy transition as part of their low-carbon development plan means that there are no other base load power sources available at a reasonable price. The focus is on being able to ramp up our lending and the leveraging of our lending into all forms of renewable energy. That's the strategy. It includes everything from all sizes of hydro through to wind, to solar, to concentrated solar, to geothermal. I think we're invested in every dimension of renewable energy. That is what we're concentrating on."
