More than 121 groups released a statement last week opposing the World Bank's proposed 'Climate Investment Funds' to address climate change and its impacts. The statement was released during the United Nations climate change talks in Bonn, Germany and coincided with a US Congressional Hearing on the Clean Technology Fund. "With their long-term record of massive fossil fuel financing, the World Bank is spectacularly unqualified to control climate funds," said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth US in Bonn. "The World Bank climate funds could undermine the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the right place to manage this kind of funds," she added. "There is no definition of the word 'clean' in the so-called Clean Technology Fund," said Janneke Bruil of Friends of the Earth International, one of the statement's signatories. “For example, ‘clean coal’ is a false solution: it has nothing to do with renewable energy," she added.
The statement released today notes that it is "highly inappropriate to issue loans for adaptation" to climate change, because it means further indebting poor countries as they adapt to climate change caused by the industrialised countries, which are providing the loans. The statement concludes by urging industrialised country governments not to support the World Bank initiative and calls on developing country governments to raise these concerns with donor countries, the World Bank and other institutions.
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