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Press Release Contact: Nadia Martínez
Tel: 51 1 512 2235 (Lima)

IDB Fuels Global Warming and Enron

Lima, Peru: A report released by The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) today reveals that US$6.2 billion of IDB financing toward 49 fossil fuel projects since 1992 will release nearly 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming.

The report, Destabilizing Investment in the Americas II, shows that despite the fact that IDB member governments are signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, and have pledged to establish measures to mitigate and reduce climate destabilizing greenhouse gases, the IDB is using billions in taxpayer money to support destructive fossil fuel projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and does not consider the climate impacts of its lending.

"The IDB is a climate outlaw." said Nadia Martinez of the Institute for Policy Studies and the report's author. "They are not only oblivious to the profound impoverishing, destabilizing effects of global warming, they're fueling it."

In addition, IDB fossil fuel projects are among the most controversial. In September 2003, the IDB approved a loan for the Camisea gas project in Peru, a top greenhouse gas emitting project. Prior to that, the IDB approved a US$132 million loan for a pipeline partially owned by Enron, one year after the company had filed for bankruptcy in the United States.

The report also finds that fifty percent of the top 15 transnational corporations that benefit from IDB-funded fossil fuel energy projects are based in the United States. Only one of the top 15, Petrobras of Brazil, is based in Latin America.

"Enron ranks fourth among the corporate beneficiaries of IDB energy loans, and was supported by over $880 million of IDB finance in Latin America," added Martinez. "The IDB is helping to make U.S. corporations richer with our taxpayer dollars, and at the terrible expense of those most affected by their devastating projects, and the planet."

The report warns that the IDB's plans to finance large energy integration projects like the South American Infrastructure Integration Initiative (IIRSA) will accelerate the pace of fossil fuel extraction by creating the conditions for energy investments by private international corporations in Latin America. It recommends an overhaul of the IDB's current policies to achieve its stated mission of alleviating poverty and promoting sustainable development.

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