Working Internationally for Clean Energy

Sierra Club and its domestic and international allies - including dozens of non-governmental organizations from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America - are working on an international campaign to promote renewable energy and energy access for the poor. This campaign aims to ensure that financial foreign assistance provided through international financial institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank, does not end up supporting fossil fuel projects that do not have as their sole purpose energy access for the poor.

Access to modern energy should be viewed not simply as electricity generation or connections, but as increased access to the services that are provided, such as lighting, heating and cooking. The World Bank group recognizes that traditional centralized energy systems such as grid expansion are often not the most efficient, effective, or sustainable means by which to expand the poor's access to clean, reliable, and sustainable energy services.

Growing evidence shows that for people who are not currently served by the grid, distributed solutions are generally much faster and appreciably cheaper than the classical centralized supply model.

However, under the guise that fossil fuels are "cheap," the World Bank and other IFIs have dramatically increased their lending for large scale centralized fossil fuel projects. These investments are directly conflicting with their mandate to alleviate poverty and their desire to deliver climate funding to developing countries. This kind of development, however, has caused enormous damage to public health, welfare and the environment while doing little to improve access to energy for the poor.

The Sierra Club international campaign works to prevent these kinds of investments. It instead encourages an approach based on expanding energy access for the poor by promoting decentralized renewable energy options targeted for the poor. These investments improve sustainable development, and avert climate catastrophe.

After a rough year - marked by a global financial crisis - the World Bank spent most of its funds to help developing countries cope with the crisis. Now, its funds are scarce, so the World Bank and the regional banks are looking for further contributions from their major shareholders - the U.S., China and South Africa - to be able to lend more money to developing countries. Presumably, this money will follow previous lending practices that support coal-based energy in poor countries.

The Sierra Club is working to influence how this money is spent. The U.S is the largest shareholder for most of the regional banks and can thus demand changes at the Bank. Actually, the U.S. Congress (Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House Financial Services Committee and the House and Senate appropriations committees) can add conditions to new money or threaten to withhold capital increases if the banks do not pursue reforms. The initial proposal, however, would be made by the U.S. Treasury, which means that we also have opportunities to influence the process here.

Sierra Club, within the framework of the international campaign, is supporting calls for reform including a phase out of fossil fuel lending, and the prioritization of energy access for the poor.

-- Elizabeth Lopez, Sierra Club Global Warming and Energy Team