Green Activists Slam World Bank's Environmental Charade - AFP

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International environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth (FoE) slammed the World Bank on Tuesday for failing to play an effective leadership role on climate change and renewable energy. The report comes as energy and environment ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations and their colleagues from such nations as China and India thrash out their climate change strategy and ways of developing sustainable clean energy sources later in London.

The Washington-based World Bank, which provides finance to states for poverty alleviation and development purposes, has been tapped by the G8 as a key player in funding renewable energy sources. But FoE laid into the institution for failing to meet its already existing targets for increasing financial support for such projects. Despite a commitment to boost funding by 20 percent annually over the next five years, the World Bank increased funding by seven percent, or 14 million dollars (11.7 million euros) in the fiscal year 2005, FoE found.

FoE said the World Bank's renewable and efficiency financing for the fiscal year 2005 represents just nine percent of all its financing in the energy sector. Meanwhile, the Bank continues to finance fossil fuel pipelines and is considering funding "destructive" large dams for energy generation in developing countries, the pressure group added.

David Waskow, International Program Director of Friends of the Earth US, said: "Renewable energy projects provide a tremendous opportunity to curb climate change, while also promoting development and addressing poverty. "But the World Bank's portrayal of itself as a key leader on renewable energy globally is seriously misleading.

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