Hydropower back in World Bank`s good books
Big hydropower projects are poised to re-enter the good books of the World Bank (wb) and the Asian Development Bank (adb). In the early 1990s, the wb had stopped funding the Sardar Sarovar Project under pressure from the Narmada Bachao Andolan. That marked the beginning of a phase during which the bank was a reluctant lender to big hydro-projects.
But the new thinking within the bank is that hydropower and nuclear energy projects hold the key to reducing carbon emissions, and in mitigating climate change. Similarly, the adb, which had stopped funding nuclear power projects in 1995, is reorienting its stance. The banks obviously can't resist the lucre of the multi-billion dollar carbon market. Funding hydro and nuclear power will earn them carbon credits.But critics say that in their haste to earn carbon credits, the banks have overlooked the old question marks over these projects.
An April 23, 2006, meet of the World Bank's Development Committee marked the first formal inklings of change. The bank's top decision-making body deliberated on a confidential report, Clean Energy and Development: Towards An Investment Framework, that day. The report makes a strong case for hydropower and nuclear projects as insurance against climate change. The April 23 meet vetted this stance, and decided that the wb should approve a reorientation in funding policies by September-end.
Myths Is hydropower a good agent to reduce emission targets then? The International Hydropower Association believes that is the case. A pamphlet of this association notes that hydropower mitigates climate change by substituting