Head Of African Development Bank Attacks Hypocritical Westerners
By Paul Homewood
The head of the African Development Bank has effectively told the UN and green groups to forget the climate crap and focus on eliminating poverty.
PEI report:
The head of the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) is defending his decision to continue financing coal-fired power plants, despite pressure from environmental groups and UN officials to shift more funds towards cleaner energy.
President of the bank, Donald Kaberuka said the region did not “have the luxury” of ruling out polluting fuels in favour of more costly renewables such as wind and solar.
“It is hypocritical for western governments who have funded their industrialisation using fossil fuels, providing their citizens with enough power, to say to African countries, ‘You cannot develop dams, you cannot develop coal, just rely on these very expensive renewables’,” Kaberuka said midweek. “African countries will not listen.”
Lobbying groups have been pushing development banks to scale back on finance for the most polluting forms of energy in an attempt to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, with scientists warning the world is headed for dangerous climate change.
Public finance institutions provided at least $55.7 billion for coal projects from 2007 to 2013, according to the Natural Resources Defence Council, a New York-based environmental group.
Kaberuka said the bank planned to balance its energy lending between fossil fuels and renewable sources, so funds for projects using natural gas would be matched with a renewable development.
Kaberuka’s comments echo those of the head of the IEA Clean Coal Centre who told Power Engineering International recently that moves by the World Bank and other institutions to end investment in coal-fired power plants would be ‘misguided.’
Dr Andrew Minchener OBE told Power Engineering International that this strategy would be detrimental when it comes to reducing emissions as developing countries would still forge ahead with coal power, but choose not to integrate clean coal technology.
“The World Bank is changing their lending criteria to end funding of coal-fired plants in these countries – personally I think that is a misguided approach. The rationale behind it is if we don’t fund coal and it doesn’t get built we won’t get the emissions, “Dr Minchener told PEi.
“The reality is that these plants will still get built because these countries need the power and they don’t necessarily have alternative options to coal but it will cost more to build it. So they will skimp in the efficiency systems or the environmental control systems and what you are left with is the opposite of what the World Bank and others thought they would achieve.”
The AfDB, based in Ivory Coast, is supporting wind power in Kenya, geothermal power in east Africa and a major solar project in Morocco.
The bank last year mobilised lending of $1.8bn for energy-related infrastructure, including $350 million for renewables. Excluding a $1bn loan in May to revitalise Angola’s energy industry, about 45 percent of the lending was for renewables last year.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Meanwhile…… in southern Africa, there has been no warming whatsoever for the past 40 years or so, according to a sample of ten reliable weather stations here (mostly airports).
China and Japan are now both major sources of funding for Africa, both indifferent to the Green Crap, but of course quite happy to sell planet saving solar panels to gullible Westerners stuck with “targets” rather than common sense.
West, so sure of its “moral superiority” in every matter, behaves as a totalitarian faction towards the un-developed populations, a double sin of domination and contemp. I am white and westerner but I recognize that our “civilization” fell so low that we are soon in a position to match Hitler’s nazi, ref Ukraine…
I find it frightening and arrogant of us in the West to dictate to any other country how to manage their energy. This “religion” on global warming will be the death of our civilisation as the debt held by all of us to try and pay for this folly will destroy our economies and will lead to wars for energy if not clean water too. The way money has usurped God as our religion is, I think, extremely dangerous.
Meanwhile, my spies tell me that South Africa has significant brownout and power interruptions.
Old news. Not an issue any more.
It is an issue, especially now that Eskom wants to have a price increase of 25% this year. How are the poorer people here going to pay? There are also many illegal connections. We have to become less reliant on Eskom power.
Well this current issue has been reported to me in the past couple of weeks … old issue?
“Not an issue any more.” I live in Joburg. We had load-shedding (power blackout) for 4 hours today. Last night it took me 2 and a half hours to get home because of traffic lights not working thanks to load-shedding in other areas along my route. Previous to that they zapped us on Saturday. Mall retailers crying. On average once a week. “Not an issue” he says. Dohh.
@oldfossil
Bought a patrol generated generator for R4000 some time ago.
Had to use it today between 6-8 pm……
(Pretoria, east)
Many co-patriots have done the same thing….
I am happy. More carbon up in the air,
is OK!!!!
Refusing to support the development of fossil fuels in Africa may one day be seen for what it is: a crime against humanity.
The chief current promoter of this misbegotten policy now occupies the White House.
liberals and environmentalists don’t care about others and they think some people like living in squalor asa natural condition …. they care about power and money only … the true believers are mentally ill and follow the charismatic abusers
How can any group of latte sipping twats pretend that consinging an entire continent to the personal, social and health misery resulting from energy poverty is better than the consequences which could, possibly, in contravention of massive scientific evidence to the contrary, result from increasing CO2?: This is a morally indefensible position.
The developed countries came to be where they are with cheap fossil fuels being a necessary part of growth. Now the developed countries tell the developing countries that the latter should invest in renewable energy. Presently renewables are costlier per effective output, keeping in mind also that solar and wind sources need energy storage or use fossil fuel as backup until cost-effective storage is available in the future.
Yet apparently, the haves are not willing to financially support the cost difference, while developing countries are expected to significantly cut their use of coal, which would significantly hinder its hundreds of millions from attaining the health, longevity, education, and other benefits enjoyed by much of the world.
This is not only unfair, it is immoral and hypocritical.
….and all of this is besides the fact that more carbon is OK….
although personally I am not so much in favor of coal, because you still sit with the poisons CO, SO2, SO3 in the exhaust and heavy metals in the ash.
Gas is the way to go, as the USA has discovered….
I agree that for at least the medium term, gas is a good solution for the countries that have it or can access it at a competitive price. But India and parts of Africa have a lot of their own coal. India’s cost of coal is $24 US a ton. Wind and solar with storage will not get close to that for at least 10 years. Their fastest way out for the hundreds of millions in poverty is to use coal. In spite of all the rhetoric that will continue from developed countries and the UN over the next many years, India, China, Africa, including South Africa should and will continue to have coal as a principal energy source. If the developed countries were serious about reducing coal usage in developing countries, they would be putting renewable cost-difference money where their mouth is. The UN says it will take over $200million US per year until 2050. That won’t happen. Nor will there be any binding agreements in COP21.
@Ken
I agree
nobody IN THE WORLD can beat the fine weather we have in South Africa, though.
Thanks, Paul.
Skeptics said from the beginning that this war on coal would be a war on the poorest people in the world. An unintended but easy to foresee consequence.
The developed countries are blackmailing the poor countries. EU and US will not accept imports from countries that do not practice sustainable policies. By sustainable they mean energy from bird choppers and bird fryers. If a development bank does not fund renewables then it is blacklisted and cannot get loans or aid grants for health, education, housing, infrastructure etc.
And naturally the governments concerned won’t complain about being blackmailed because of the very generous “enabling fees” that the renewables industries pay them.
And then people tell me not to call it a scam because that’s an emotionally biased word. Okay, how about fraud?
A REASONABLE DEVELOPING COUNTRY CO2 EMISSIONS TARGET
Each developing country agrees to limit Per Capita CO2 emissions to the level of the average of the developed countries’ Per Capita CO2 emissions, at the time that each developed country’s GDP equals half of the developed countries’ average GDP.
Correction to : A REASONABLE DEVELOPING COUNTRY CO2 EMISSIONS TARGET
Each developing country agrees to limit Per Capita CO2 emissions to the level of the average of the developed countries’ Per Capita CO2 emissions, at the time that each developing country’s Per Capita GDP equals half of the developed countries’ average Per Capita GDP.