Thousands remind the EBRD that coal is not an option
September 4, 2013 | Read more
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development received a little surprise visit this week from 16 000 voices against coal.
Charts: Financial allocations for Cohesion Policy
August 29, 2013 | Read more
Cohesion Policy decisions are heating up at national level while financial allocations for the period 2014-2020 have been published this week.
As part of the consultation on its energy sector strategy the EBRD next week hosts public meetings in Istanbul, Belgrade and Moscow to discuss with civil society from its countries of operation. While public pressure is increasing to end coal financing it is important to note that restrictions to carbon-intensive investments must be strictly and clearly defined in the strategy document if they are to improve the EBRD’s climate impact. An article from Bankwatch’s 2012 annual report (pdf) illustrates how a too flexible approach allows the EBRD to greenwash also very dirty investments.
On Monday Polish NGOs Client Earth, Workshop for all Beings, Greenpeace, WWF and local community group Eco-Kociewie petitioned the General Director of Environmental Protection to cancel the environmental impact assessment permit for the Polnoc Power Plant in northern Poland.
There is a big long list of technical jargon attached to the programming documents of the EU funds for the 2014-2020 funding period – enough to fill an entire blog post on its own. But you will be relieved to read that, in the context of Latvia’s ongoing negotiations as to how we will spend our future EU budget money, I will focus on only one of these items. It may be a bit of a mouthful, but it is what it says it is – only in Latvia, as environmental NGOs are discovering, what should be a safeguard for the environment appears to have gone missing.
All eyes on the EBRD – will it go coal free?
August 14, 2013 | Read more
In case you missed it, the tectonic plates just shifted in the world of international financial institution (IFI) energy lending.
