Holding the Poor Hostage

By Roger Pielke, Jr.

Anyone who wants to see how the misplaced opposition to adaptation actually hurts poor people need look no further than the report out today from ClimateWire:

Environmental and humanitarian activist groups plan to formally ask the World Bank to back away from plans to create a $500 million trust fund aimed at helping poor nations cope with climate change.

The letter, which representatives of several organizations confirmed Thursday is being drafted and will be signed by more than 100 organizations, comes as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund launch their 2008 spring meeting, attended by finance ministers from across the world.

Among the reasons cited for opposing adaptation funds is that the World Bank is supporting the development of a giant coal plant in India:

Groups said their overarching concern, though, is the World Bank's fossil fuel-rich energy portfolio. The bank's approval this week of $450 million for a major coal-fired power plant in India, many said, undermines its attempts to go green.

"There's a lot of concern about the World Bank taking over of the [adaptation program] because of their ongoing funding of fossil fuel projects," said Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, a nonprofit group based in Washington that advocates for clean energy and against foreign aid to the international oil industry.

"It is not a credible institution for managing these funds, especially given its poor environmental track record," added Karen Orenstein, extractive industries campaign coordinator with the environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth.

"If the World Bank is truly interested in being a leader in fighting climate change, they shouldn't start out by financing a huge mega-coal project," she said.

So you read that right, lets take away money that could have positive benefits improving the lives of people in the developing world because of concerns about a fossil fuel project. This is a real-world example of how continuing efforts to place adaptation in opposition to mitigation have a material effect on people's lives.

Does anyone really think that opposing energy development and adaptation will make the climate agenda more appealing to people in India? Why can't these groups support adaptation and clean energy at the same time, rather than placing them in opposition?

Comments

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Good point, Roger. Paul Polak, whose book Design for the Other 90% is a textbook on appropriate sustainable development at Stanford and MIT, has a new book called "Out of Poverty" that has no mention of climate change but is all about talking with those living in poverty to find out exactly what their needs are, and his "design revolution" in my mind complements the Break Through paradigm shift.

By Mark on 2008 04 15