world bank

While Mr. Ban Ki Moon, U.N.

Despite intense debate surrounding the growing global food crises, the European Union today defended expanding the use of biofuels in all 27 member countries. Part of the EU’s climate change package, the current proposal sets a target of meeting 10% of transportation fuel with biofuels by 2020.

NPR’s Morning Addition briefly interviewed World Bank President Robert Zoellick last Friday concerning world food prices. Zoellick called it a “perfect storm of things coming together…” and listed 7 different issues contributing to the increasing cost of food, which led to rioting in Haiti and Egypt last week, along with a general strike in Burkina Faso.

India’s Tata Power group just gained financial backing from the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, for its “Ultra Mega” power plant.

If global warming is evident, that means that all nations should do a considerable effort to reverse the effects of our situation. Apparently India is not going in this direction. It has been said that a $4.2 billion coal-fired power plant is an upcoming project to respond to India’s enormous need for more and affordable electricity.

A barrel of oil costs twice as much today as it did a year ago, and experts say prices could go higher. According to new data from the Philippine government, 4 million Filipinos slid back into poverty in 2006 as a result of rising oil prices and a higher cost of living. In addition, Chinese demand for oil is increasing by 15 percent a year,

World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who just wrapped up a trip to China, has released a report on innovative projects within the country. One example of an energy-reducing initiative is the country's use of wind power.

Representatives of agencies within the United Nations discuss climate change as a challenge from various perspectives, including environmental, development, and finance.

The World Bank says any global warming agreement reached must curb greenhouse gas emissions without burdening developing countries.

My former employers, the World Bank, are damaging the planet and punishing the poor, says Robert Goodland who worked at the bank as an environmental advisor for 23 years.

The World Bank decides to destroy the 2nd largest forest in the world

The rainforest in the Congo is the second largest forest after the Amazon.  The trees, soils and ecosystem locks 8 percent of our planet’s carbon.  This ecosystem, through a multitude of services, provides medicine, shelter, timber and food for 40 million people.  Today, the World Bank working indirecly with the UK Government, has decided to strip the forest of its timber, displace the local culture, and export its value to foreign markets.

Tropical forest countries will be eligible for payments for preventing deforestation under a program unveiled last week by the World Bank. Called the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the fund will initially provide $300 million to finance emissions reductions through forest conservation initiatives

The World Bank Group has launched an initiative to provide modern lighting to the 250 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa who do not have access to electricity. The initiative called, Lighting Africa, will be managed in conjunction with International Finance Corporation, the Bank's private sector arm.

The people of Vietnam are seeing the benefits of projects backed by the World Bank, with the latest of several large power plants now online as a result of a joint venture project worth $400 million.

Back in April, at the World Bank's spring meeting, there was much talk about the plight of the Congo rainforest. Greenpeace had just published a big report detailing how in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) logging titles were being granted in breach of a moratorium that the bank had been instrumental in establishing. The report launch was so high profile, Greenpeace were able to force DRC's rainforest high onto the agenda of the World Bank meeting and have also managed to secure another session at the upcoming autumn meeting.