Auditors - World Bank Failed To Follow Own Environmental Policies In Approving Huge SA Coal Plant

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The World Bank failed to follow several of its own policies when it approved a $3.75 billion loan for the South African utility Eskom to build one of the world's biggest coal plants, an independent audit obtained by ClimateWire found.

The year-and-a-half-long investigation by the World Bank Inspection Panel criticized the bank for insufficiently taking health, water scarcity and the pressures on local services into account when supporting the 4,800-megawatt Medupi power plant in South Africa's Limpopo province.

Yet the decision did not violate World Bank climate change policies, the panel said, partially because the World Bank does not have explicit emission targets. It did, however, say that it found the World Bank's steps to mitigate Medupi's estimated 25 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions lacking.

"The magnitude of emissions from Medupi far outweighs emissions avoided through project mitigation measures" like a rail project and energy efficiency additions, they wrote.

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http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2011/12/02/1