UK government burn £400 million of green aid in coal fired projects
In another spectacular coal related own goal for the government almost £400 million of ‘green’ aid meant to help developing countries build a low carbon future will in fact subsidise new smoke belching, fossil fuelled power stations.
The UK money will be ploughed into the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund (CTF) which will fund the building of new coal power plants in developing countries.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in a welcome move from the US Congress, they abandoned their pledge to contribute $400 million to the controversial coal fund.
Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement, slammed the UK’s approach:
"This UK government money is supposedly specifically designed to help developing countries make the transition to low carbon economies. It's an absolute disgrace that it will actually be used for building new coal power stations. This money will actually contribute significantly to climate change, rather than do anything to prevent it. This is embarrassing for the UK government; but is incredibly worrying news for the world's poorest people who will be hit hardest by climate change. They expect the UK to play a leading role in the fight against climate change both at home and through its funding.”
Don’t take his word for it though. This plan is just as unpopular with those in the Global South, as Ricardo Navarro, a climate change campaigner from Central America points out:
"This UK government money is supposedly specifically designed to help developing countries make the transition to low carbon economies. It's an absolute disgrace that it will actually be used for building new coal power stations. This money will actually contribute significantly to climate change, rather than do anything to prevent it. This is embarrassing for the UK government; but is incredibly worrying news for the world's poorest people who will be hit hardest by climate change. They expect the UK to play a leading role in the fight against climate change both at home and through its funding.”
Take action against new coal on WDM's website
The World Bank's web 2.0 friendly blog (where you can post comments).
building new coal power station
We have many builings which use a large quantity of electricity mainly during the day - schools, offices, public buildings. Couldn't the government use the money allocated for building a power station to install solar panel systems on these buildings and then charge a slightly lower rate for the energy consumed??