The World Bank, the G8 Summit and Climate Change
On Tuesday, the World Bank took two big steps in the struggle to improve global warming by establishing two investment funds in order to help developing nations move to cleaner energy sources. The World Bank hopes that by doing so these nations can assist in lowering climate change and also develop a dependency on energy resources which will not have such a negative effect on the environment. These two funds are the Clean Technology Fund and the Strategic Climate Fund, the approval of these two funds comes days before the Group of Eight summit. This summit will take place in Hokkaido, Japan on the 8th of July and is meant to address the issue of climate change.
The World Bank expects the full support of the nations which are to participate in the Group of Eight summit. The World Bank expects these nations to give an initial amount of $4 billion or $5 billion in donations, in order to make the funds feasible. From among the Group of Eight, the United States, Britain and Japan have all agreed to contribute to the funds. In addition, more nations are expected to join in, now that the initial period of approval for the fund has passed.
The director of the World Bank’s environment department, Warren Evans, has stated that there are no specific financial commitments, though he is confident that the World Bank will be able to raise $500 million for its programs. “We would hope the funds are fully operational by the fourth quarter of this year,” Evans stated. He also mentioned that he was not concerned about choosing a particular time for the first payment because of the length that it will take to put the projects together. According to Evans, financing for the projects will be decided by a committee made up of the Group of Eight nations, through a consensus.
The president of World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has stated that these funds are part of the Bank’s response to climate change. Zoellick has said that he feels that “the (funds) will have a significant impact in generating even more financing for climate action,” and they will also help “in demonstrating new approaches to address the current and future effects of climate change”.
These new approaches will include: agricultural solutions, water management, development concerns, energy resources and so forth.
Look to Starry Night Lights for the latest environmental news, and for fixtures which will ensure the protection of the night sky.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Outdoor Lighting, Starry Night Lights, environment, global warming, green building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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