Coal and the World Bank (continued)

The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group is out with a new review of the Bank’s activities and their effect on climate change (h/t  Real Time Economics).  Bank funding for coal power plants has been a hot issue in recent months, and the report treads carefully in that area. The complexity of the issues…is illustrated by ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group is out with a new review of the Bank's activities and their effect on climate change (h/t  Real Time Economics).  Bank funding for coal power plants has been a hot issue in recent months, and the report treads carefully in that area.

The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group is out with a new review of the Bank’s activities and their effect on climate change (h/t  Real Time Economics).  Bank funding for coal power plants has been a hot issue in recent months, and the report treads carefully in that area.

The complexity of the issues…is illustrated by [the World Bank group’s] support for a supercritical coal plant in India. On one hand, it will be one of the largest point sources of CO2 on the planet, adding to the atmosphere’s pre-existing burden as GHG concentrations climb towards dangerous levels. On the other, it may nevertheless have reduced emissions by about 10 percent compared to a scenario without IFC involvement, and indirectly accelerated the diffusion of this higherefficiency technology in a country that will continue to rely on coal for decades to meet urgent power needs. 

When a major coal project in South Africa came before the Bank’s board earlier this year, prominent Democrats in Congress, including Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank, pressed the administration to oppose it (the U.S. ultimately abstained). At least from the American side, the dynamic will be quite different the next time around.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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