Global Civil Society Calls for Limit on World Bank Climate Finance Role

Survivors of summer 2010 floods in Pakistan; IRIN

In a letter sent to the Secretary of the UNFCCC on April 5th, more than 90 global civil society organizations urged a strictly limited role for the World Bank in the new Green Climate Fund. The GCF was established through the Cancun Agreements last December, and would serve as an important source of funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation programs in developing countries.

Through 2011, a Transitional Committee is being set up to agree on the specific details of the governance of this Fund. In the language of the Cancun Agreements, the World Bank was designated as “interim trustee” for at least three years. In the letter, the organizations express concern that the World Bank continues to fund dirty coal, oil, and gas projects in developing countries. Indeed, the Bank recently announced that it will restrict funding for coal-fired power plants in all but the poorest countries.

A rural farmer in Vietnam; IRIN

The letter urges the UNFCCC Secretariat and members of the Transitional Committee to ensure that the Green Climate Fund’s board is independent of World Bank influence, appoint a member of the UNFCCC Secretariat to coordinate technical support for the Transitional Committee, facilitate financial and organizational support from UN agencies such as UNEP and UNDP to assist in the Fund’s design, create a process for civil society participation in the Transitional Committee, and to make the role of the World Bank and other international financial institutions transparent and limited.