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Ukraine’s nuclear expansion plans under fire from UN body, EBRD ‘safety loan’ called into question again

Bankwatch Mail | 10 May, 2013 | Download PDF

In a landmark ruling laid out in a March 25 letter to the Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Implementation Commission of the United Nations Espoo Convention has deemed that Ukraine’s plans to expand the lifetime of its old nuclear reactors is in breach of the convention – the same convention that Ukraine ratified in 1999. Ukrainian campaigners believe that this should lead the EBRD to halt the disbursement of a EUR 300 million ‘nuclear safety’ loan agreed with Ukraine’s state nuclear operator just days prior to the issuing of the Espoo verdict.


Health impacts of coal quantified – public lenders urged to act

Bankwatch Mail | 10 May, 2013 | Download PDF

The findings of a recent report entitled ‘The unpaid health bill: How coal power plants make us sick’, released by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), detail the health impacts of existing coal in Europe and quantify the associated costs of mortality and chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disease due to coal pollution.


More dirty coal on the radar as EBRD announces new strategy for Kosovo

Bankwatch Mail | 10 May, 2013 | Download PDF

The EBRD’s new country strategy for Kosovo, announced by the bank on May 3 after Bankwatch Mail Issue 56 went to press, has confirmed what NGOs and others had feared in the consultation process for the EBRD’s first strategy in its new country of operation: that financial support for a new major lignite power plant is very much on the EBRD’s radar, despite evidence that Kosovo does not need such a power plant as well as the potential undermining of EU climate goals.


New EBRD Environmental and Social policy needs climate muscle and tightened safeguards for protected areas

Bankwatch Mail | 10 May, 2013 | Download PDF

If there is one sector in which the EBRD has been causing particular controversy in recent years, it is the energy sector. From lignite in Slovenia to hydropower in Georgia and nuclear in Ukraine, the bank has financed a series of projects that have incurred opposition from various quarters. Now that the EBRD is revising its Environmental and Social Policy it’s time to take a look at what needs to be learned from these projects.


Connie Hedegaard: Stop paying the polluters

Bankwatch Mail | 10 May, 2013 | Download PDF

“When the winds of change blow,” says an old Chinese proverb, “some build walls, and others build wind mills.”