World
Bank Undermines
Efforts On Global Warming
By George M.
Woodwell and Kilaparti Ramakrishna
12 August, 2004
Boston Globe
While we are all preoccupied with an unnecessary
war costing billions of dollars and eating up time that might far better
be spent on the alleviation of poverty and disease, global climatic
disruption gains momentum and moves toward irreversible climatic chaos.
The World Bank recently
met to consider continued support for development of new sources of
fossil fuels, the primary cause of the climatic disruption. It decided
to continue support in the interest of offering succor to those less
developed nations that might sell oil or coal or gas into the world
markets. The action calls attention once again to the growing discrepancy
between what the scientific community is saying about the state of the
world and what the political and economic communities are willing to
hear. The fact is that the environment is being changed in ways that
destroy its life-supporting capacities. Immediate effective steps must
be taken to stop the erosion.
First, the world
must move away from a reliance on fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and gas
-- as the energy source for industrialization. There is, of course,
enormous resistance to this change. The political and economic interests
of the fossil fuel industry and its allies are overwhelming. They argue,
in a now stereotypical pattern, that the scientists are wrong, then
that the scientists may be right but change is very expensive and the
expense is not justified, and, finally, that it is too late to try because
we cannot stop the changes.
The World Bank,
on the other hand, has an international legal personality and a position
of leadership. Its job is to improve the world, to aid in economic development.
While one might
question the organization's methods, its mission is certainly not to
drive the world into impoverishment. Yet the human undertaking that
the World Bank wishes to advance is dependent upon a functioning environment
that is being destroyed daily by current use of fossil fuels.
The best way to
eliminate a pest, defeat an enemy, or cause the erosion of society is
to change the environment out from under it. History is rich in examples
as climate or soil or other environmental resources have collapsed and
caused the demise of one civilization after another.
The difference now
is that the changes are global and the global industrial civilization
with all of its successes and all of its promise is at hazard.
The atmospheric
burden of human-produced heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide,
is more than 30 percent 0above what it was a century ago and far higher
than it has been at any time in the last 460,000 years. And it will
soar under current policies to levels that are in fact unpredictable
as the warming feeds on itself by stimulating further releases of heat
trapping gases from forests and soils and as the seas warm and absorb
less of the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The full effects
of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, without continued additions,
will extend far beyond current predictions.
The failure of the
United States and others to take international leadership in correcting
this trend is inexcusable, but this failure in no way justifies the
action of the World Bank in leading the world into even greater reliance
on fossil fuels.
If the bank requires
justification in international action, it has it in the Framework Convention
on Climate Change, a treaty that has been ratified by all the nations,
including the United States, and provides for "stabilizing"
the heat trapping gas content of the atmosphere at levels that will
protect human interests and nature. It is time for the public to hold
the World Bank and other international development agencies to a far
higher set of environmental standards than has been set by most of the
governments that delegates to the governing board represent.
Failure to do so
assures the ultimate and final failure of the central mission of government
at all levels, but most conspicuously in the international realm that
the international development banks serve.
George M. Woodwell
and Kilaparti Ramakrishna are the director and deputy director of the
Woods Hole Research Center.
© Copyright
2004 Globe Newspaper Company.