The Bank without Backing

The World Bank leads the field in promoting so-called "clean energy" development (CDM).

Yet it is bankrolling a coal power plant in South Africa, in the teeth of opposition from two of its key members, to be operated by one of the country's most criticised companies.

Core to the Bank's CDM programme is carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology aimed at neutralising coal's unenviable role as the world's dirtiest fuel.

But, according to a leading scientist, CCS is a "profoundly non-feasible option for the management of CO2 emissions."

As the Indonesian government opens the door wider to mining in protected forests, environmentalists call on the World Bank to withdraw support for a vast new nickel mine.

Other news this week:

• A UK mining project will violate the law , says Sierra Leone NGO

• Tanzanians are cursed by gold, according to one African commentator

• An Indian bureaucrat claims that mining reform might quell Maoist revolt

The London Declaration - 2008

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Who's funding what in mining?

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