{"id":403149,"date":"2019-04-15T13:50:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T12:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/world-bank-now-led-by-trump-pick-ramps-up-fossil-fuel-development\/"},"modified":"2019-04-15T13:50:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T12:50:31","slug":"world-bank-now-led-by-trump-pick-ramps-up-fossil-fuel-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/world-bank-now-led-by-trump-pick-ramps-up-fossil-fuel-development\/","title":{"rendered":"World Bank, Now Led by Trump Pick, Ramps Up Fossil Fuel Development"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The World Bank Group faces criticism for continuing to back fossil fuel development, despite moves to clean up its portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>It has earned green credentials for ending direct lending to coal-fired power plants, promising to axe support for oil and gas exploration and increasing its clean energy budget.<\/p>\n<p>Yet over the last five years, the group\u2019s support to oil and gas actually increased, while coal benefitted from indirect subsidies, according to<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/urgewald.org\/sites\/default\/files\/World_Bank_Fossil_Projects_WEB.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis<\/a> from German NGO Urgewald.<\/p>\n<div class=\"truth-post-content-high  inline-callout-container\" id=\"truth-1490211356\">\n<div class=\"truth-post-content-high\" id=\"truth-901151607\">\n<aside class=\" callout inline-callout callout--subscribe callout--dark\" id=\"truth-1537307853\">\n<h2>The stories you care about, right at your fingertips<\/h2>\n<p>Get Truthout\u2019s daily edition delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The study, which covers 675 active investments, found $21 billion went to fossil fuels between 2014 and 2018. While clean energy finance grew rapidly, it did not catch up. The figure was $7bn or $15bn, depending on the inclusion of large-scale hydropower and other projects with disputed environmental benefits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a big disappointment to find that the World Bank Group continues to provide such vast amounts of public finance for fossil fuels,\u201d said report author Heike Mainhardt. \u201cThe bank thereby completely undermines its own efforts for renewable energy sources as well as the Paris climate goals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the World Bank defended its record, saying the Urgewald report \u201cpaints a distorted picture of our energy sector work.\u201d The inclusion of \u201clegacy projects where financing was approved many years ago\u201d means it \u201cdoes not reflect the substantial changes that have happened in World Bank energy financing over the past decade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In the last fiscal year, the bank approved $20.5 billion in finance for climate action, he added, meeting a 2020 target two years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n<p>The report comes days after the World Bank confirmed its new president, David Malpass, Donald Trump\u2019s choice for the job.<\/p>\n<p>Environmentalists have voiced fears the former US treasury official might deprioritise climate change, in line with Trump\u2019s politics. But Malpass offered<span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2019\/apr\/09\/new-world-bank-chief-confirms-commitment-to-environment\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">early&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/world-bank-now-led-by-trump-pick-ramps-up-fossil-fuel-development\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The World Bank Group faces criticism for continuing to back fossil fuel development, despite moves to clean up its portfolio. It has earned green credentials for ending direct lending to coal-fired power plants, promising to axe support for oil and gas exploration and increasing its clean energy budget. Yet over the last five years, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-403149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}