Multilateral development banks concluded a two day conference in London yesterday on “Financing Clean Energy”. Non-governmental organizations were generally shut out of the meeting, restricted to a handful of participants, but a long list of oil and energy companies were in attendance and they were ready to discuss just about anything other than phasing out international subsidies to oil and other fossil fuels.Recently the World Bank proudly announced that it was able to increase renewable energy and energy efficiency by 20 percent last year, but a close look at the figures also reveals that the Bank increased support for oil, mining and gas by 40 percent. The Bank’s private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation, increased its financing to fossil fuels by more than 50 percent!

These figures illustrate the serious failures and contradictions involved in the World Bank’s energy work. It is nothing short of hypocrisy for development banks to talk about combating climate change while channeling billions into fossil fuel projects.

Yesterday’s conference was jointly organized by the EBRD, the World Bank Group, the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and attended by approximately 100 participants, including representatives from multilateral development banks, private investment banks, European governments, and European and Japanese companies. It failed to fully involve renewable and energy efficiency companies and relevant civil society organisations involved in energy and development issues. Following criticism, however, the EBRD invited a small number of NGO representatives and European renewable and energy efficiency associations at the last minute, though they were significantly outnumbered by representatives from the likes of Shell, Chevron, ABN Amro, Dupont, EDF and Suez.

A group of 40 German NGOs called on G8 Environment Ministers today to phase out fossil fuel subsidies at home and use their influence to steer the World Bank away from fossil fuels and towards a new energy revolution.A long list of German organizations, including the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, Oxfam Germany, WWF, Bund, Care, Urgewald, Misereor, Greenpeace, Church Development Service (EED), WEED, GermanWatch, and many more, presented these recommendations in a joint G8 policy paper to the G8 Environment Ministerial in Potsdam.The policy paper outlines NGO concerns related to climate change, energy, raw materials, biodiversity, trade, intellectual property, aid to Africa, and debt cancellation in the run-up to the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm this June.

“WE NEED TO PROMOTE A GLOBAL ENERGY REVOLUTION…”

Among many other things, the policy paper calls on all G8 States to phase out fossil fuel subsidies at home by steering their “subsidies in the energy sector, which have been estimated at 240 billion US dollars a year, towards renewable energies and increasing energy efficiency.”

The paper expresses concern about the world’s dependence on oil and the economic vulnerability that this implies for many impoverished countries. It argues that: “Most of the developing countries are dependent on importing crude oil. The costs of oil bills are threatening to nullify any progress made in development. These countries urgently require a new energy policy perspective, which is first and foremost offered by renewable energies.”

The 40 German organizations that released the paper argue that development assistance to the energy sector is taking the world in the wrong direction: “instead of promoting the development of local, renewable energy sources in developing countries, international donors such as the World Bank, on which the G8 States exert considerable influence, are above all financing the further development of fossil fuel sources. Renewable energies only play a minor role.”

And they call on the G8 States to “use their influence to steer the entire energy portfolio of the World Bank and other international institutions towards local, renewable energies and increasing energy efficiency.”

The policy paper is entitled: Testing the credibility of the powerful: Concrete Action for Environment and Development: Policy Paper of International Non-Governmental Organisations for the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, 6^th-8^th June. For a copy of the Policy Paper write to Mona (mona@forumue.de ) at the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development (or ask me at graham@priceofoil.org).

The Climate Action Network (CAN), a worldwide network of over 365 Non-Governmental Organizations working together to fight climate change, called on the G8 today to “start a complete phase out of public financing for fossil fuel operations and oil aid and ensure that International Financial Institutions, such as the World Bank, become leaders in investing in the energy future, based on renewable energies and energy efficiency.”Energy and climate change will once again be on the agenda at this year’s G8 Summit in June in Germany, and CAN’s call to end oil aid was one of a number of demands that organizations are putting forward. Pressure is mounting for the G8 to stop fueling global warming with subsidies to Big Oil and other fossil fuels and to start focusing on moving the world towards a new and renewable energy revolution.