by CEE Bankwatch, December 11st. 

Poland landed the mock NGO prize “Fossil of the Day” on day four of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen for actively blocking the proposed upgrade of the EU's emissions reduction target to 30 percent. [1] This award is given to the country or countries doing the most to obstruct progress in the global climate talks, with Germany and New Zealand trailing Poland on day four. ...continua »

December 1st., 2009 

A new article by former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and Senior Fellow at the Miller Institute Alice Miller have written a new article about the social impacts of climate change. They argue that if the World Bank is going to be the default institution for climate financing, it can vastly improve its practices to live up to this role.

November 20th., by Bretton Woods Project 

With much awaited climate talks in Copenhagen in December, the World Bank and its supporters are positioning the institution to play a significant, if not dominant, role in future climate finance.

While interim UN climate negotiation meetings took place in Bangkok in October, senior Bank officials at the Bank's annual meetings in Istanbul emphasised that they would wait to see the outcome of the Copenhagen climate talks to decide what role the Bank would play.

However, in a panel discussion, Michele de Nevers, senior manager of the Bank's environment group, asserted that the institution is best placed to manage climate finance because of its ability to leverage funding and its strong fiduciary, procurement and safeguard policies.  ...continua »

November 19th., 2009 by BIC 

In a speech titled “Building a Twenty-First Century Development Bank: New Challenges, New Priorities,” Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry laid out his vision for the role of the US and the World Bank in tackling climate change, energy investment, and economic development.

11 November 2009 letter sent to IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, urging him open up the process for producing a report on how banks can repay governments for the bailouts and demanding strong consideration of a financial transaction tax in the report.

by Dani Rodrick, November  11th, 2009

CAMBRIDGE – Why does the International Monetary Fund make it so hard for people like me to love it?

The IMF has said and done all the right things since the crisis. It has acted as quickly as any international bureaucracy can to establish new lines of credit for battered emerging-market countries. It revamped its loan conditions to fit the times. Under its capable managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and distinguished chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, it has been a voice for sanity on global fiscal stimulus in the midst of much cacophony. For an institution that seemed on the verge of irrelevance not too long ago, this is quite a transformation.

 ...continua »

November 9th., by CEE Bankwatch and Client Earth

In parallel to a second round of consultations on the European Investment Bank’s Transparency Policy, Bankwatch together with the NGO Client Earth announced today the publication of a model transparency policy for the EIB that would set the bank on much more assured ground towards becoming an open and inclusive institution.

If the world fails to deliver a political agreement at the UN climate conference in December, it will be “the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century”, says incoming COP15 president, Connie Hedegaard.

by  Barbara Unmuessig

The World Bank is moving to become one of the major institutions taking on climate change through its Climate Investment Funds, among other policies. However, Heinrich Boell Foundation president Barbara Unmuessig believes that without reforms, the Bank will not be able to effectively or fairly alter the course on global warming.

November 3rd., 2009

ZIMBABWE, weighed down by a $5,7 billion debt, should not rush into adopting the Highly Indebted Countries Initiative but should instead pursue other strategies that could yield better results