trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

was put on projects predominantly focused on energy efficiency and renewable energy, 3,23 billion wasfor projects that contained multiple components most of which were unrelated to renewable energy orenergy efficiency and that 1,33 billion was put in projects that according to SEEN did not match at allwith the Bank’s definition of renewable energy. And in the case of future commitments, although thepercentage was in line with EIR recommendations, the baseline chosen was claimed to be very low, sothat the 2005 target was actually lower than the Bank’s loans for renewables 10 years earlier in 1994. Thereport stated that if the Bank had truly supported over 6 billion in renewable energy and energyefficiency since 1990 and would have built its baseline for past 10 years, its future commitments wouldhave needed to be more than double (that is approx. $400 million a year instead of the BonnCommitment’s $200 million a year). The World Bank figures on its energy portfolio have continued tobe contested until now (e.g. BIC et al. 2006, WWF 2008, SEEN 2007, BWP et al. 2010, WRI 2010).Also the definitions and categorizations related to renewables have undergone interesting changes,especially in relation to large hydropower development. For example in a World Bank report from 2004published at the same with the Bonn Commitment there is no distinction made between renewables andnew renewables. Also the so called Bonn Commitment was announced first only as commitment torenewable energy. Later on, however, the World Bank stated that it considers all hydropower regardlessof scale as renewable and emphasized a difference between renewables and ‘new renewables’ where thelatter includes only small hydropower. And later on the Bonn Commitment has been defined ascommitment to new renewables. World Bank clarified that even though it regards large hydropower asrenewable it will for reporting purposes give separate figures for projects in which installed capacityexceeds 10 megawatts. But in many instances this has not been the case.This shows that the climate turn in World Bank’s energy portfolio has been facilitating the comebackof large hydropower which was already considered as belonging to the past after the criticism it faced inthe end of 1980’s and during the 1990’s. The public concerns about the risks relating to environment,water equity, population displacements and social justice issues led World Bank withdraw from largeand controversial hydro power projects. World Bank funding for hydro power projects declined due toprotests and lawsuits around hydropower and in 1999 the Bank did not fund any hydro power project.(McCully 2001; Berliant 2009) Along with the establishment of the World Commission on Dams and itsfamous report (WCD 2000) problems related to large-dams became widely acknowledged. It seems thatas the agenda of climate change has increased its importance – so has the Bank’s efforts to show that itcan be the leader for the renewable energy revolution. And at the same time hydropower that during the1990’s was one of the most contested sector of World Bank’s energy finance has experienced arenaissance. 2003 has been the year of clear come back of hydropower funding – World Bank approved67 projects. Since then new lending has increased significantly: from less than $250 million per yearfrom 2002-2004 to $500 million per year from 2005-2007. In fiscal year 2008, the lending exceeded $1billion. (World Bank 2009.) Especially the large scale hydropower projects have continued to causeconcerns about the environmental impacts, human right violations, technical problems anddisplacement of people. For example, the World Bank’s financing of the Bujagali hydro power project inUganda and Nam Theun 2 in Laos both have provoked protest campaigns.What comes to ‘new renewables’, they are considered by the World Bank as an important tool forboth poverty reduction on one hand, and low-cost and effective opportunity to reduce future growth ingreenhouse gases on the other hand. According to the Bank itself, over the last six years, excluding large112