The IPS report, "The World Bank and the G-7, Still Changing the Earth's Climate for Business 1997-98",¹ will be launched at a joint press conference with FOE, to be held at 2:30 PM on Friday 15th May, at the People's Summit Press Centre, Cardinal Suite, Grand Hotel, Colmore Row, Birmingham, England (2 minutes from Summit).

The World Bank is exposed today as a major promoter of global warming. The news comes as G8 summit leaders meet to discuss how developing countries can be persuaded to act on global warming. But the shocking new report from the US Institute For Policy Studies, endorsed by Friends Of The Earth International shows that:

• The greenhouse gas emissions produced by these projects over their lifetimes (9.9 billion tons of carbon) will total more than three times the 1995 output of greenhouse gases from all OECD countries (2.7 billion tons of carbon)

• The Bank still spends nearly 10 times more on promoting climate change than on averting it

• The G8 countries provide half of the World Bank funds

• Because there is almost a dollar for dollar relationship between contributions to the Bank and procurement contracts, nine tenths of World Bank fossil fuel money ends up with multi-national companies such as Amoco, Chevron, Exxon, and Mobil. These companies are leading lobbyists - through the Global Climate Coalition - in resisting official action on climate change, particularly through the US Senate

Over the last year one third of all World Bank fossil fuel funding has been spent in China. It is estimated that China will requite an extra 15 gigawatts of power every year if it is to meet its planned 8% annual growth rate. This amount of power could run two cities the size of Los Angeles. The Bank has approved over $1 billion dollars in loans to three coal-fired power projects (Tuoketuo, Waigaoqao, Yancheng) with a combined capacity of 7,700 megawatts. A loan for two additional power plants in Leiyang is due for approval in June. If this loan is approved, the World Bank's China portfolio for 1998 will eventually exceed 2 billion tons of CO2.²

Other World bank fossil fuel funding is being spent on opening untapped coal reserves, oil and gas fields in some of the most crucial ecological sites in less industrialized regions. Examples include Nigeria (where nine Ogoni activists were hung in 1995 for opposition to oil drilling), the Caspian Sea (where a major pipeline is planned), the planned Chad-Cameroon pipeline and the Amazon Rainforest.

Commenting, Daphne Wysham of IPS said:

Notes to Editors

1. This report is a follow up to IPS's June 1997 study, "The World Bank and the G-7, Changing the Earth's Climate for Business"

2. In October 1997, Exxon chairman Lee Raymond spoke at the 15th World Petroleum Congress in Beijing. He urged China to use more, not less, fossil fuels and blamed climate change on "nature". Exxon is a major funder of the Global Climate Coalition, which has urged the US Senate not to ratify the Kyoto agreement until China and other developing countries agree to match planned US action on climate change.

### For Further information call co-author Jim Vallette (International Trade Information Service, US) 1-204-244-3106 or access the report on the web, where you may order a hard copy.  Email seen@seen.org or call 202-234-9382 ext.208 to order a hard copy.