World Bank report: bank should stop supporting coal, oil projects.

• Author: Chafe, Zoe
• Position: Environmental Intelligence

The World Bank Group should continue to deny funding to coal projects, and should phase out support of oil production projects by 2008, concludes a new study of the Bank's oil, gas, and mining projects commissioned by Bank president James Wolfensohn. The Extractive Industries Review (EIR) said the Bank should instead "devote its scarce resources to investments in renewable energy resource development, emissions-reducing projects, clean energy technology, energy efficiency, and conservation." Fossil-fuel projects now represent 94 percent of the World Bank Group's energy portfolio.

The EIR was directed by Dr. Emil Salim, former Indonesian environment minister and recently resigned director of Indonesia's largest coal company. It was intended to analyze the Bank's role in extractive industries and determine whether that role was compatible with its goals of sustainable development and poverty reduction. Though the EIR makes clear that the World Bank Group should continue its involvement with most extractive...