World Bank’s “Slightly Cleaner Technology Fund”

At a briefing today on the Stategic Framework on Climate Change and Development, a World Bank official conceded that the proposed “Clean Technology Fund” might better be called the “Slightly Cleaner Technology Fund,” but said she would not go so far as to call it the “Dirty Technology Fund.”

Addressing Members of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, Michele de Nevers clarified that some projects, like wind and hydro, would be “very clean” while others would be only “a little cleaner,” like giant coal plants and investments in Carbon Capture and Storage readiness. (CCS won’t be ready for over 10 years, if ever, but still the Bank plans to put scarce public monies into it instead of proven technologies like solar thermal.)

Ms. de Nevers justified these “slightly cleaner” investments by saying that the world will continue to depend on fossil fuels for 80% of its energy needs.

She didn’t mention that the Bank is doing everything it can, to the tune of $1 billion per year in multilateral oil aid, to make sure that forecast – Exxon’s forecast – comes true.