Invest in haste, repent at leisure – Are IFIs behaving as if EU accession criteria and extreme energy losses do not exist in South East Europe?
June 25, 2013
South-eastern Europe is riddled with poor planning and corruption in the energy sector and its governments are proving slow to react to the challenges and opportunities offered by the decarbonisation agenda.
[Campaign update] Plomin project promoter not able to justify health risks of coal
June 21, 2013
Public discussions about the Plomin coal power plant’s health impacts show how both project promoters and public authorities prefer to ignore or play down uncomfortable arguments and evidence against the project.
EU leaders support green energy campaign: The European Council calls for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies
May 23, 2013
Just as Bankwatch published a new infographic juxtaposing the European Investment Bank’s beneficial and harmful energy lending, Europe’s political leaders have set a priority for energy investments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and focus on clean energy instead.
The European Investment Bank’s energy lending: stuck in the past or facing the future?
May 23, 2013
The European Investment Bank, the house bank of the European Union, which directs a fifth of its annual lending portfolio of 60 to 70 billion euros to energy projects, is currently reviewing the policy document that guides its lending to the power sector. On this occasion, Bankwatch is publishing a poster of positive and negative examples of the bank’s lending to energy projects.
Divesting from coal is not ideology but climate science – a reminder for the EBRD
May 14, 2013
The energy director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has made astonishing statements about coal investments prompting Bankwatch’s EBRD campaign team to react.
Fair treatment is a long time coming at Serbia’s Kolubara lignite mine
May 13, 2013
People from the Kolubara mine basin in Serbia have many stories to tell about the hardships they face due to the lignite mining operations. Serbian Bankwatcher Nikola Perusic adds his account to two stories in the guardian and in Bankwatch Mail 56.
No end in sight for EBRD coal finance
May 10, 2013
Istanbul – With the 2013 EBRD annual meetings underway and in spite of repeated commitments to sustainability, the bank is set to continue financing coal projects that will dangerously aggravate climate change.
Public action: Croatian coal power plant besieged by 680 bodies
May 10, 2013
Yesterday, Green Action/Zelena Akcija, Greenpeace and Green Istria staged a spooky public action to raise attention for the findings of a new study that predicts approximately 17 early deaths annually due to the planned new 500 MW unit at the Plomin coal power plant in Croatia.
The climate crisis and the role of Europe’s public banks
April 22, 2013
With each passing day, there is less chance that we will manage to keep the planet within the “safe” limit of two degrees Celsius global warming that would avoid disastrous climate change. The European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development can play a pivotal role in leveraging more private investment for sustainable energy. Both institutions are now reviewing their energy lending policies.
EBRD with disastrous start in Kosovo, European Parliament not amused
April 19, 2013
The European Parliament yesterday chastised the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for its explicit interest in financing a new lignite-fired power plant in Kosovo. NGOs hope the bank will pay more attention to the Parliament than it did to civil society and energy experts so far.
