(EnergyAsia, May 13, Tuesday) — An environmental group has launched a campaign to stop the World Bank from setting up what it says are funds that contribute to global warming and pollution.

Friends of the Earth (FOE) said the World Bank should not be in control of funds that it says promotes  extractive industries and fossil fuels, shortchanges the poor while placing the ecosystems at great risk and enriching corporations.

“Help stop the World Bank from setting up these climate investment funds,” said FOE.

It said that long-time environmental activists know that the World Bank’s investments have regularly gone toward projects that damage the environment, emit major amounts of greenhouse gas pollution, and negatively impact communities and human rights in the developing world.

“Now it wants to be the arbiter of huge pots of money intended to tackle global warming,” said FOE.

The group said it has documented the World Bank’s record of causing environmental damage and short-changing the poor while supporting rich corporations. It said that through its private investment arm, the World Bank has worked with the world’s richest nations to invest upwards of $3 billion in new greenhouse gas producing projects.

Despite this record of downgrading environmental concerns in the interests of corporate development, FOE said the World Bank is now proposing to manage what it calls climate investment funds, possibly controlling billions of dollars intended to curb global warming.

FOE said the oil and gas industry currently receives $1 billion per year, and growing, from the World Bank. In 2006, oil, gas, and power commitments accounted for 77% of the World Bank’s total energy programme. It claims that only about 6% of the fund went to ‘new renewables’ like wind and solar.

In April 2008, the Bank approved a $450 million loan for a massive 4,000 megawatt coal project in India, expected to be one of the 50 largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world.

The stated purpose of the World Bank’s proposed Clean Technology Fund is to “provide scaled up financing to assist developing countries in transitioning to low-carbon economies.”

But neither ‘clean’ nor ‘transformational’ nor ‘low-carbon’ is defined. Building somewhat more efficient coal-fired plants would seem to qualify as ‘clean technology.’

FOE said: “Not surprisingly, the World Bank’s proposed climate investment funds have been heavily criticised by civil society and developing country governments for marginalising their voices and bypassing international climate negotiations.

“In many cases, recipient poor countries would have to pay the money back, further indebting those most at risk from global warming to those most responsible for it.”