Groups oppose the World Bank's proposed climate funds

AllAfrica.com, via Friends of the Earth: While welcoming increased international attention to the climate crisis, civil society groups from the global South and global North today are calling on the World Bank to withdraw its proposal to establish climate investment funds.

The World Bank on April 3 detailed plans to establish at least two funds outside of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a Strategic Climate Fund featuring a “Pilot Program for Climate Resilience” and a Clean Technology Fund.

"The Bank's proposals undermine democratic, global efforts to address climate change under the auspices of the United Nations," said Celine Tan of Third World Network in Malaysia. "The Bank's funds are top-down, donor-driven and are in danger of creating parallel and contradictory structures financing climate change adaptation and mitigation. Developing countries have already come out in opposition to these funds at the recent climate change talks in Bangkok.”

“The World Bank is not a credible institution for managing these funds, given its poor environmental track record and the negative impact of conditions associated with loans and grants to developing countries,” continued Tan....

Photo of the World Bank building in Washington by "Shiny Things," from Flickr, via Wikimedia Commons