MEDIA ADVISORY
Friends of the Earth
International
July 4, 2008
G8 LEADERS URGED
TO DUMP THE WORLD BANK'S CLIMATE INVESTMENT FUNDS
HOKKAIDO, JAPAN, July 4, 2008 -- G8
leaders meeting in Hokkaido July 7-9 to tackle issues such as rising
oil prices and global warming are being urged to dump the World
Bank’s highly controversial ‘climate investment funds’.
Friends of the Earth International
Climate and Energy Coordinator Joseph Zacune said:
"The G8 meeting is being promoted
as an opportunity to address global warming but G8 nations are promoting
policies such as World Bank climate funds and carbon trading for
forests that will damage the environment and harm developing country
communities that are least responsible for climate change and most
vulnerable to its impacts."
“G8 countries have benefited economically
by exploiting fossil fuels across the planet for the past 250 years
and they must live up to their historical and current responsibilities
by radically cutting their own emissions and supporting developing
countries and communities’ efforts to reduce their emissions and
adapt to climate change," he added.
Campaigners and community leaders
will be protesting and speaking out against the World Bank's launch
of its climate investment funds during the G8 Summit, which are
being supported by the United States, the UK and Japan.
Friends of the Earth US International
Finance campaigner Karen Orenstein said:
"If the Bush, Brown, and Fukuda administrations
are trying to generate international good will and show commitment
to tackling climate change, then the World Bank is the exact wrong
institution to do so. There is immense distrust of the World Bank
by the very constituencies it professes to serve, precisely because
of its long record of miring the South in crushing debt; its financing
of polluting industries, oil extraction, mega-dams, logging, and
industrial plantations; and its widespread disregard of the rights
of communities affected by its policies and projects."
“The Bank's new climate funds will
undermine United Nations climate talks, increase debt, and pay polluters.
They will potentially also threaten Indigenous Peoples' land rights
through the Bank’s carbon trading for forests initiatives. Industrialised
countries should reject the Bank’s funds and proactively support
a technology financing mechanism for clean, safe and renewable energy
under the full authority of the United Nations. They should also
support Indigenous Peoples' land rights and radically reduce their
own wasteful consumption," she added
Friends of the Earth International
believes that industrialised countries should be supporting and
committing to funds established under the authority of the UN Climate
Change Convention, to pay for adaptation, mitigation, forest protection
and clean sustainable development in developing countries. In addition
they should implement moratoria on fossil fuel finance and subsidies
and ensure forest protection programs that uphold the rights of
Indigenous Peoples and communities.
Friends of the Earth Japan will be
holding events parallel to the G8 Summit demanding climate justice,
opposing the World Bank's climate funds, and highlighting the dangers
of the rush for agrofuels.
Friends of the Earth Japan campaigner
Kenichi Nakazawa said:
“Agrofuels are fuelling deforestation,
loss of biodiversity and climate change. They are also causing food
price increase, hunger, land rights violations, water scarcity and
human rights abuses. Governments must say no to agrofuels.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
More information on the World Bank's
climate investment funds can be found at:
>https://action.foe.org/t/3877/content.jsp?content_KEY=4176
More than 121 groups recently released
a statement opposing the World Bank's ‘Climate Investment Funds’.
The statement is available at:
>https://www.endoilaid.org/wbcif
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