G8 Leaders Urged Not to Use Public Funds to Undermine Action on Climate and Debt
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G8 Leaders Urged Not to Use Public Funds to Undermine Action on Climate and Debt Read the complete letter Gleneagles, Scotland (July 8, 2005) - Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at Gleneagles delivered a statement today signed by over 120 civil society groups from 43 countries -- representing environmental, religious, development, and human rights groups -- that urged G8 leaders not to ignore their concerns regarding the root causes of climate change and debt. The G8 leaders are poised to sign on to text that will exacerbate the problem of global warming and debt by funneling yet more development "aid" toward fossil fuel projects-while opening the door for public financing of large dams and nuclear power plants in the global South, as "carbon-free" alternatives. The NGO letter urges them to instead cancel the debt, finance clean energy and efficiency, while helping oil-dependent nations transition to more diversified economies. The draft action plan on climate, dated June 6, 2005, entrusts the World Bank with the role of providing financing for clean energy, yet the World Bank is one of the leading public financiers of fossil fuels and has made a miniscule commitment to renewable energy, contrary to statements by the Bank to the contrary. "Follow the money-today, the World Bank invests 17 times as much in fossil fuel projects as it does in renewables and efficiency. If the G8 leaders really wanted action on climate change instead of huge profits for their corporations like Halliburton and Shell, they would reverse these ratios," said Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and co-author of Wrong Turn from Rio: The World Bank's Road to Climate Catastrophe. "The G8 plans for pushing the Global Gas Flare Reduction Partnership as a major step forward is another farce: The Nigerian government had already committed to reducing this illegal and highly wasteful practice; but now the World Bank plans to sell carbon credits from this initiative to allow more business as usual for rich countries," she added. The G8 draft action plan also proposes to "work with Export Credit Agencies to ensure the support they offer for low carbon technologies is sufficient, with a view to increasing the low carbon energy percentage of their portfolios." "G8 export credit agencies are the largest source of funding for new nuclear reactors in Eastern Europe and the developing countries," said Antonio Tricarico, coordinator of CRBM Italy. "While nukes could be considered 'low carbon' investments, these old-fashioned and very expensive technologies will increase security risks globally." Despite the UK calling for "urgent action" on climate change and debt, the G8 draft communiqué also urges tactics to lower the price of oil, thereby making rapid climate change-and debt-- even more inevitable: "We urge oil producing countries and companies and consumers to recognize their common interest in ensuring investment in sufficient future supplies of oil and refining capacity, and call for the removal of barriers to investment throughout the supply chain," the text reads. "If Tony Blair and other G8 leaders are serious about tackling global warming and debt, they need to be willing to end support for the common factor that causes both - oil." said Steve Kretzmann, Director of Oil Change and a co-author of Drilling into Debt, a new report which documents oil's role in exacerbating debt globally. "People are dying every day of preventable diseases in Africa and elsewhere while their governments are forced to service illegitimate debts," said Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of Jubilee USA Network. "Climate change will make matters even worse for the poorest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia who are predicted to suffer the worst effects as the planet warms." Tony Juniper, Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International, said, "The G8 countries are planning at this meeting to further deepen global injustice. Their climate-changing pollution is already harming the poor countries and now they will make matters worse by encouraging the rich to waste more oil in traffic jams full of gas-guzzling cars. In the process they will plunder the natural resources of developing countries while fuelling corruption, debt and human rights violations." These NGOs joined over 120 other groups in making several demands of the G8 leaders, including:
Civil Society Statement on Debt and Climate Change We the undersigned call on the Group of 8 (G8) leaders to recognize and act upon the twin, interlinked crises of debt and global warming. Current G8 energy investments are fundamentally at odds with sound development practice. Ongoing public financing of the fossil fuel industry is increasing debt, poverty, and climate change. Urgent action is now required to substantially reduce emissions, reduce fossil fuel dependence, and protect people around the world, especially the vulnerable, the poor and disappearing nations. Such urgent action requires that G8 nations make rapid, specific, substantial and sustained cuts in their domestic emissions of greenhouse gases. It also requires that G8 leaders cut the significant emissions that are resulting from their taxpayer-financed multilateral and bilateral lending agencies. Export credit agencies and international financial institutions are leading financiers of oil, gas and coal projects around the world. The World Bank Group alone has financed over $25 billion in oil, gas and coal contracts (including fossil fuel-fired power plants) since the UN Climate Convention was signed by a majority of the world’s countries in 1992. The current and future emissions from all World Bank fossil fuel projects financed since 1992 is equivalent to almost two years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions. While the World Bank is supposed to serve the world’s poor, it is the poor who are likely to suffer first and foremost from climate change, as they will not be able to take preventive measures to protect themselves. In addition, over 80% of all oil projects financed by the World Bank are designed to produce petroleum for export to the wealthy countries of the north. Along with most of the gas and coal projects financed by the World Bank, they do little or nothing to meet the growing energy needs of the poorest. Public financing, intended for poverty alleviation and sustainable development, instead ends up being simply another public subsidy to wealthy governments, consumers and corporations. Other multilateral development banks and publicly financed export credit agencies (ECAs) follow a similar pattern of investment. U.S. export credit and investment insurance agencies alone have invested over $32billion in financing and insurance for oil and gas fields, pipelines and coal-fired power plants since 1992 without assessing their contribution to global warming nor their impact on the U.S. or global environment. Estimates suggest these U.S. taxpayer-backed ECA investments alone are releasing and will release over one year’s worth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Other ECAs have supported fossil fuel-based energy projects which produce or will produce as much as 20 times the amount of greenhouse gases as their own governments have committed to reduce under the Kyoto Protocol. Meanwhile, the World Bank and the Global Environmental Facility, created at the 1992 Earth Summit to act on climate change, combined have invested over 17 times more in fossil fuels and fossil fuel-driven power plants as they have in renewable forms of energy and energy efficiency projects. Carbon trading engineered by the World Bank Group in advance of the Clean Development Mechanism is resulting in few, if any, truly renewable energy projects. Instead, monoculture tree plantations, gas flare reduction and methane capture from waste dumps are gaining the lions’ share of financing-while carbon credits as currently enacted enable dirty industry to continue with business as usual in the North. Gas flaring and venting by petroleum corporations in Nigeria remains sub-Saharan Africa’s largest source of greenhouse gases, yet, the WorldBank is preparing to sell carbon credits for Chevron/Shell’s West-African Gas pipeline, despite the fact that overall greenhouse gas emissions due to flaring will not be reduced by this project. Such initiatives are misleading and provide no net progress toward climate stability and a net loss for local as well as global communities. Thus, the public institutions entrusted with averting a climate catastrophe are dangerously exacerbating the problem. Such institutional corruption results in paltry funding for renewable energy, a growing energy deficit among the poorest in developing countries, and increased developing country debt. The World Bank’s own Extractive Industries Review, a three-year study commissioned by the World Bank’s president with involvement of government, industry and civil society, came to the conclusion that, if the World Bank is serious about poverty alleviation and climate change, it should get out of coal immediately, get out of oil by 2008, and rapidly scale up its investments in renewable energy at the rate of 20% a year. Yet senior World Bank officials openly reject the report’s recommendations. Thus, we call on the G8 nations to:
Signed, Organizational Endorsements Global Jubilee South Africa Afrodad (Africa Forum & Network on Debt & Development) Argentina Federación Amigos de la Tierra Foro Ecologista de Paraná, Entre Ríos Australia Mineral Policy Institute Bangladesh LOKOJ Institute Belgium FERN Bolivia Fundacion Solon Brazil Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and Development (FBOMS) Canada Citizens For Renewable Energy Chile CODEFF, Comité Nacional Pro Defensa de la Fauna y Flora Colombia Campaña Continental Contra el ALCA Costa Rica COECOCEIBA-Foe Cuba Centro Memorial Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Czech Republic Hnuti DUHA/Friends of the Earth France HELIO International Germany Urgewald e.V. Ghana Friends of the Earth Ghana Honduras CODDEFFAGOLF Hong Kong, China Globalisation Monitor India Centre for Organization Research and Education Indonesia WALHI / FoE Ireland GRIAN Italy Observatorio sobre la Region Andina SELVAS Japan Jubilee Kyushu on World Debt and Poverty Kyrgyztan Human Development Center "Tree of Life" Mexico DECA Equipo Pueblo, A.C. Mozambique Livaningo Nepal SEWA NEPAL Netherlands Friends of the Earth-Netherlands Niger Reseau Nationale du Dette et Developpement Nigeria Movement for the Survival off the Ogoni People (MOSOP) Pakistan Shirkatgah Paraguay SOBREVIVENCIA, Amigos de la Tierra Peru ECOVIDA Philippines SOLJUSPAX Poland Polish Green Network Portugal Centre for Environmental Law and Sustainable Development Puerto Rico Gritos Excluidos-Jubileo Sur Romania TERRA Mileniul III Senegal African Forum on Alternatives Sierra Leone Friends of the Earth - Sierra Leone South Africa Earthlife Africa Jhb Spain Obervatorio de la Deuda en la Globalizacion Thailand FORUM-ASIA and ESCR-PRO, Economics, Social, and Cultural Rights Promotion Centre United Kingdom The Corner House United States Sisters of the Holy Cross - Congregation Justice Committee Uruguay World Rainforest Movement |
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