Press release

Campaigners will give bottles of ‘carbon bubbles’ to shareholders at the London Stock Exchange AGM today, to highlight the vast reserves of unburnable carbon held by fossil fuel companies listed on the exchange.

The World Development Movement is calling for the London Stock Exchange to move away from finance for fossil fuels. Shares in fossil fuels are worth around £900 billion on the stock exchange, and make up a quarter of all shares listed there.

Labels on the bubbles will read: “The ‘carbon bubble’ is the amount of CO2 that would be released if all known fossil fuel reserves were extracted and burnt. Just 30 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange hold more of this unburned carbon than the CO2 emissions of the whole world for the past six years. Burning these reserves would make catastrophic climate change a certainty.”

Campaigner Kirsty Wright said:

The vast majority of the fossil fuels for which shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange simply cannot be burned. Failing to address this now can lead us down only two paths – a climate-related financial crisis, or complete planetary meltdown. In order to...

British company GCM Resources was dealt a serious blow today as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreed to consider complaints regarding severe human rights violations associated with the company’s planned coal mine in Bangladesh.

GCM wants to open a massive open-pit coal mine in Phulbari in the north-west of Bangladesh, displacing up to 220,000 people and threatening the Sundarbans, one of the world’s largest remaining mangrove forests and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The complaint by the International Accountability Project and the World Development Movement claims that the mine planned by the AIM-listed company would breach OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. It would violate the human rights of indigenous people from 23 different tribal groups, and destroy nearly 12,000 acres of Bangladesh’s most fertile and productive farmland.

Phulbari's fertile farmlands are Bangladesh's rice bowl. (Photo courtesy of JACSES)

Eighty per cent of local people depend on the land for their survival, but GCM will not replace their land and its project...

Campaigners set up a 'Carbon Bubbles champagne bar' outside of HSBC’s AGM to highlight the bank’s role in financing dirty energy projects.

Our bar staff were on hand at our Carbon Bubbles bar, ready to serve oil from champagne glasses, while protesters held placards reading 'HSBC stop bankrolling climate change'. 

Campaigners from the World Development Movement highlighted HSBC’s involvement in financing dirty energy projects around the world. 

For example, HSBC supports the Cerrejon coal mine in Colombia. Latin America’s largest coal mine, it has swallowed up entire villages and is subject to fierce local opposition. If the coal remaining in this mine were to be burned it would create 13,000,000,000 of CO2 emissions – 184 times the annual emissions of Colombia. Yet most of the coal is destined for export, including to the UK. [1]

HSBC has a total of £3.133 billion involvement in companies behind Cerrejon. Since 2009, HSBC has loaned a total of £369 million to the three companies behind the Cerrejon mine (£107 million to Anglo American and £262 million to Xstrata). It has also helped the three firms make £2.565 billion through bond issues (£252 million for Anglo American, £450 million for Xstrata, £1.863 billion for BHP Billiton) over the...

British mining giant Anglo-American will face protests at its London AGM on Friday over controversial mining projects in Colombia and South Africa, and the climate impact of its coal extraction.

Protest: Anglo-American AGM, Friday 19 April at 1pm, Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London SW1P 3EE

Protestors in miners’ helmets and overalls will hold placards reading ‘Anglo American: Destroying lives, Destroying the climate’.

Representatives of communities devastated by Anglo-American mines will attend the AGM to demand justice. Julio Gomez will travel from Colombia to condemn the Cerrejón open pit coal mine, in which Anglo American has a one-third share. Development of the mine has led to the eviction of indigenous and Afro-Colombian people from their ancestral territories, and the destruction of vast areas of productive land.

Following local and international outcry, the Cerrejón coal company recently shelved an expansion project which would have meant diverting the region’s only major river. All of the coal mined at Cerrejón is exported, so does not...

One third of ministers in the UK government, including top cabinet ministers, are linked to the UK finance and energy companies fuelling climate change, a new report from the World Development Movement reveals today.

The anti-poverty campaign group has condemned the ‘finance-energy complex’ at the heart of government, and is calling on the government to force UK banks and finance companies to publish the carbon emissions released by the fossil fuel projects they fund.

Fossil fuel companies are worth £900 billion on the London Stock Exchange, and the top five UK banks underwrote £170 billion in bonds and share issues for fossil fuel companies between 2010 and 2012.

Top cabinet ministers including William Hague, Vince Cable, George Osborne and Michael Gove have links with big finance, oil and coal companies that are driving climate change.

Foreign secretary William Hague, who used to work for Shell, helped Tullow Oil get out of paying a £175 million tax bill in Uganda, one of the world’s poorest countries. Mr Hague made a personal phone call to the Ugandan president on Tullow Oil’s behalf.

Vince Cable, secretary of state for business and skills and...

Barclays, which announced an end to its speculation on food on Tuesday, made up to an estimated £278 million from the trade in 2012. The figure brings the bank’s total revenue from food speculation from 2010 to 2012 to an estimated three quarters of a billion pounds.

The bank has pulled out of speculative deals with hedge funds. Campaigners welcome this move but are disappointed by its decision to continue selling investment products that allow other financial players, like pension funds, to speculate.

The £278 million figure was released today by the World Development Movement, which is calling for regulation to prevent banks betting on food prices and contributing to the global hunger crisis.

Barclays has been the leading UK player in speculating on food. Goldman Sachs is widely recognised as the world leader.

Barclays’ withdrawal follows announcements in 2012 by several German, Austrian and Scandinavian banks that they would reduce or suspend trading in food commodity markets. But German giant Deutsche Bank, one of the banks indicating a withdrawal, has since returned to speculating on food.

Legislation to curb speculation is on the table at the EU, but the UK government has so far...

Massive protests against British mining company GCM Resources prevented the company’s CEO visiting the site of its proposed open-pit coal mine in Bangladesh last week. One of the company’s directors resigned the following day.

CEO Gary Lye was due to visit Phulbari on 29 January, where GCM wants to open a mine that would displace up to 220,000 people. Mr Lye had planned to distribute blankets to people living in the area, according to the local press. Thousands of people joined protests against the mine, and Lye abandoned his visit on official advice.

One of GCM’s directors, Graham Taggart, resigned on Wednesday. The company’s largest shareholder, Polo Resources, has announced that it is considering selling its 29.77 per cent stake in the company.

Phulbari's fertile farmlands are Bangladesh's rice bowl. (Photo courtesy of JACSES)

A Bangladeshi parliamentary committee has also spoken out against GCM, claiming that that the company does not have a valid agreement with the Bangladeshi government to proceed with the mine.

The British mining company has faced sustained opposition to its planned mine. Three people were killed and...

Yesterday the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) adopted its report on the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). This piece of legislation is critical to achieve stronger regulation of commodity derivative markets and limit harmful financial speculation on food. 

NGOs welcomed the introduction of mandatory limits on speculation but warn that a number of loopholes must be fixed to make the proposed rules effective. 

Marc Olivier Herman, Oxfam’s EU policy advisor, said: 

Betting on food prices is unacceptable in a world where nearly 1 billion people are going hungry. The vote shows that there is a majority in the European Parliament in favour of limiting harmful financial speculation. However, the text adopted yesterday falls short of what is needed to tackle food speculation.” 

Christine Haigh, the World Development Movement’s policy officer, said: 

The text adopted yesterday by the Economic Affairs Committee contains dangerous loopholes: an overly narrow definition of the limits to be imposed on speculation and generous exemption clauses excusing some companies from...

Ebay seller “Rio_Summit_Nature_Sale” today listed some of the world’s most famous forests, oceans, lakes and species for sale on ebay. 

The sale was timed to coincide with a “Natural Capital Dialogue” being held today at Rio+20  by the World Bank and the UK government. The meeting will promote initiatives that put a price on ecosystems and allow new commodities to be created, as part of a “green economy” agenda that has drawn widespread criticism at the summit.

Kirsty Wright, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said today:

The UK government is promoting the sale of nature to the highest bidder. We set up the Rio+20 nature sale on ebay to demonstrate how ridiculous this is. By selling off iconic natural sites such as the Amazon rainforest and the Lake District, we are simply following the UK’s approach that the intrinsic value of ecosystems can now be quantified and that they can then be owned, speculated on and ultimately sold off to whoever has the most money."  

Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Jubilee South Asia/Pacific Movement on...

EU plans to promote the replacement of fossil fuels with biomass at the Rio+20 Earth Summit could lead to hunger and environmental devastation, according to a report released today by the World Development Movement and the Transnational Institute.

The report, ‘Bio-economies: the EU’s real ‘Green Economy’ agenda’, condemns the EU’s bio-economy vision as “a tantalising mirage, promising a green future but likely to deliver a parched and arid reality”.

The EU’s bio-economy policy aims to replace fossil fuels with biomass – including wood fibres, grass, bamboo, soybeans, corn and algae - as a source of energy and in the production of plastics and other manufactured goods. But the EU’s own analysis indicates that this would have a disastrous impact on developing countries, including severe pressures on food supply. 

Alex Scrivener, policy officer at the World Development Movement, said today:

“Substituting biomass for fossil fuels sounds like the easy solution to climate change. But in reality, it leads to land grabs, the destruction of rainforests, and severe food shortages where land is used to grow fuel instead of food. And the idea that biofuels are ‘...

The Moroccan government is expected to award a contract in the coming weeks for the building of a massive solar power plant in Morocco, using UK aid money to produce electricity for Europe.

Money taken from the UK aid budget is to be used by the World Bank to finance the Ouarzazate solar project, designed to prioritise export to Europe rather than to ensure that ordinary Moroccans can access affordable electricity.

The project is part funded the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, which receives 14 per cent of its money - or £385 million – from the UK overseas aid budget. The fund’s objectives include poverty reduction, but a report launched today by the World Development Movement argues that the project could in fact exacerbate poverty in Morocco.

The report’s author Oscar Reyes said today:

Investment in renewable energy is essential to the fight against climate change. But measures to tackle climate change will only work if they also address poverty and inequality. By setting in place an export-led model that is likely to see electricity...

Ahead of deliberations by MEPs on Wednesday, 25 campaign groups from across Europe today released a statement (PDF) urging the EU to use the review of its Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) to curb financial speculation on food prices. 

The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) will meet on Wednesday to discuss the report on the Commission’s MiFID proposal by the rapporteur, German MEP Markus Ferber. 

The campaign groups are calling for the updated MiFID to include position limits to prevent speculation on food and other commodities from driving up prices, meaningful transparency, oversight and supervisory powers to ensure effective regulation, and bans on harmful trading methods and on financial entities speculating in commodity markets.

Christine Haigh, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said:

Deregulation of commodity markets since the 1990s has led to increased food price volatility, contributing to the recent food price spikes that have left millions across the world facing hunger and poverty. We urgently need MEPs and the Council of Ministers to reregulate these...

UK consumers are paying 3.7 per cent more for food than they did a year ago, leading to calls for the Chancellor George Osborne to tackle financial speculation on food prices. The rise has added more than £100 to the average household’s annual grocery bill.

Inflation figures released today reveal that food prices rose by 1.2 per cent from January to February this year, contributing to the 3.7 per cent annual rise, which is well above the government’s 2 per cent target for overall inflation. [1]

Ahead of tomorrow’s budget, the World Development Movement is calling on George Osborne to back European measures to stop financial speculation by banks and hedge funds driving up food prices. Real incomes in the UK are shrinking and almost a billion people face hunger worldwide, but curbing speculation would help prevent price spikes and would cost the Treasury virtually nothing, says the anti-poverty group.

High prices are also harming British businesses. Premier Foods, owner of Hovis, yesterday announced a £259.1 million pre-tax loss for 2011, partially due to rising wheat prices. The global price of cereals rose by 35 per cent from 2010 to 2011. [2]

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement...

WDM today welcomed the Scottish government's announcement of the setting up of a ‘climate justice fund’ for climate adaptation in developing countries, but warned that the scale of climate injustice suffered by countries in the south means that the SNP's £9 million manifesto pledge for the fund must be increased.

 Liz Murray, head of Scottish campaigns for the World Development Movement said:

“We welcome the Scottish government’s announcement of its ‘climate justice fund’ and its acknowledgement that Scotland owes a huge climate debt to the world’s poorest people.  Scotland got rich on fossil fuel energy at the expense of poorer countries who are now suffering the impacts of climate change.   And on a planet with limited capacity to absorb carbon, the rich world has left the rest of the world with little room to take the same development path. But the scale of climate injustice should not be underestimated, and if Scotland is going to make a fair contribution then the SNP government’s manifesto pledge of £9 million for this fund must be increased.

Cutting emissions here in Scotland is also a vital part of ensuring climate justice. That means the Scottish government must say no to a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston, to...

Barclays’ £1.5 billion investment banking bonus pool could pay for school meals for two years for the 23 million primary age children who attend school hungry across Africa, according to figures from the World Development Movement.  

The anti-poverty group has slammed the bank for its involvement in speculation on food prices which is fuelling global price spikes, incentivised by bonuses which it claims reward risky and socially damaging behaviour. 

The total bonus pool for the bank’s investment arm could pay for 9.6 billion meals, the campaign group said today.  

Barclays has been estimated to make up to £340 million a year from speculating on food, while almost a billion people go hungry worldwide. The World Development Movement is calling for tough regulation to curb speculation on food. The group has claimed today that big banks’ ‘bonus culture’ fuels gambling behaviour that risks people’s lives. 

Christine Haigh, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said today:

Big bonuses encourage bankers to take big risks, not only with financial stability through their debt-based investment, but also with people’s lives. The kind of ‘success’ Barclays has...

By the end of tomorrow (Friday 13 January 2012), the average person in Britain will have emitted as much carbon dioxide as the average person in Kenya will in an entire year, according to figures from the World Development Movement. 

The latest available data shows Kenya’s annual per capita carbon emissions at 0.293 tons, while the UK’s are 8.351 tons. Despite having such little responsibility for causing climate change, Kenyans are facing some of the worst weather related disasters globally. Last year, Kenya and neighbouring East African countries suffered their worst drought in 60 years, resulting in a severe food crisis.

By 2 January the average UK citizen had already emitted as much CO2 as the average person in Chad or Afghanistan will by the end of 2012.

By 16 January the average Brit will have emitted as much CO2 as the average Bangladeshi will all year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that Bangladesh will face an increasing number of disasters due to typhoons and tropical storms.

By 1 March a UK citizen will have emitted as much CO2 as the average citizen of India will do all year. An estimated 700...

Barclays Bank has been shortlisted for the 2012 Public Eye ‘shame award’ due to its financial speculation on food prices. Anti-poverty campaign group the World Development Movement, which nominated the bank, says its activity is fuelling hunger and poverty worldwide. 

Barclays is estimated to make up to £340 million a year from speculating in food ‘futures’ markets, making it the biggest UK player in the markets. Research by the World Development Movement shows that a massive influx of speculative money in food markets is driving sharp price spikes, sending the cost of food soaring beyond the reach of the world’s poorest people. Financial speculation on food nearly doubled between 2006 and 2011.

Barclays CEO Bob Diamond responded to the Occupy movement by telling the BBC in November that banks must be “better citizens”. But Barclays has ignored calls from campaigners to put the basic human need for food before the profits it makes from speculation.

Amy Horton, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said today:

Barclays is essentially gambling on food prices, at the expense of millions of people...

Durban, 16:45, 9 December 2011

As negotiations on the final outcome of the UN climate talks look set to continue late into the night, negotiators remain focused on the EU’s proposed roadmap to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a package that makes the same demands of poor developing countries as it does of rich industrialised countries. The talks have paid almost no attention to the two most urgent issues for developing countries: emissions reductions by developed countries, and finance to help people in poor countries cope with climate change.

On the last day of the talks, Murray Worthy, policy officer at the World Development Movement said:

“The UK and EU’s talk of a new global deal is little more than a distraction from their inaction. The EU is failing to take responsibility for its part in causing climate change.  It should be taking the lead through meaningful action. Instead, the EU ‘roadmap’ has been a smokescreen for developed countries’ failure to do what is needed. It is the world’s poorest people, those least responsible for this crisis, who will end up paying the highest price.”

The talks look set to result in a new Green Climate Fund to deliver finance to developing countries. But the World Development Movement...

A report launched today by the World Development Movement reveals that UK climate aid is being used to produce cheap electricity for the US multinational Walmart, through a project that violates the rights of indigenous people in Mexico.

The report, ‘Power to the people?’, details how money taken from the UK aid budget has been used by the World Bank to finance wind farms in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, built without the consent of the indigenous people who own the land. The project produces enough electricity to power 160,000 homes, but is instead being sold at a discounted rate to Walmart. The project is 99 per cent controlled by French electricity giant EDF.

The La Mata and La Ventosa wind park is part funded the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, which receives 14 per cent of its money - or £385 million – from the UK overseas aid budget. The fund’s objectives include poverty reduction, but the wind park has done nothing to increase energy access among the seven per cent of Oaxaca’s population who have no electricity.

Local indigenous woman Bettina Cruz Velazquez told the World Development Movement:

With the pretext of advancing renewable energy, big corporations are occupying our...

• Chancellor George Osborne parodied by the World Development Movement and writers Hoot Comedy
• Comedy series calls on George Osborne to ‘do the right thing’ and back regulation of food speculation by banks
• Speculation is driving high food prices worldwide. High food costs have pushed the food bill for the average UK household up by £188 [1]in the past year, and are forcing  millions of people in developing countries into poverty and hunger

UK Chancellor George Osborne is being re-imagined in a brand new internet comedy series starring Rufus Jones (Holy Flying Circus) which premiers today (22 November) at www.therealgeorgeosborne.com. The Real George Osborne follows George and his long-suffering advisor, Vicki, as he tries to raise his political profile in a bid to become the next Prime Minister.

Filmed in 14 parts and airing between now and Christmas, The Real George Osborne sees George undertake a number of ill-advised PR stunts in order to compete with Boris Johnson as ‘the most recognised Tory’ and unseat David Cameron. Our bumbling Chancellor takes street-dance lessons, enlists a full-time reality TV crew and struggles with fad diets to try to improve his image.

The...

Protest and photo call: Anti-poverty campaigners and activists from Occupy London will stage a human casino outside Goldman Sachs highlighting how the bank’s betting on food prices is fuelling global hunger.

When: 12.15-12.30pm, Thursday 27 October

Where: Goldman Sachs, 133 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BB

Anti-poverty campaigners from the World Development Movement will show support for the occupation at London Stock Exchange by staging a human casino outside Goldman Sachs’ offices, to highlight how the bank is gambling on hunger by speculating on food prices. The action is part of efforts to expand the reach of the Occupy movement.

Goldman Sachs made $1 billion dollars last year from speculating on food prices. Huge growth in financial speculation on food has spurred sharp increases in global food prices, which in the last six months of 2010 alone pushed another 44 million people into extreme poverty. In the UK, average annual food bills have jumped by £260 in a year.

Murray Worthy, policy officer at the World Development Movement said:

Reckless trading by bankers not only caused the financial crisis, it is...

More than 450 economists from over 40 countries have called on the G20 finance ministers, who are meeting in Paris this week, to take urgent action to stop financial speculation in commodity markets driving up food prices and fuelling hunger. 

'Excessive financial speculation is contributing to increasing volatility and record food prices, exacerbating global hunger and poverty,’ say the economists in a letter to the finance ministers. ‘With around 1 billion people enduring chronic hunger worldwide, action is urgently needed to curb excessive speculation and its effects on global food prices.

Economists from top universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley, Cornell and the London School of Economics have signed the letter, adding their voices to an escalating international campaign. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Pope, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz are among those who have already spoken out in favour of curbing speculation.

The G20 agriculture ministers have also called on their finance counterparts to introduce tighter regulation. Speculation is...

‘Broken’ financial markets are driving up food prices, reveals a new report released today, as inflation figures show UK consumers are now paying over seven per cent more for bread than a year ago.[1]

The report from anti-poverty group the World Development Movement shows how financial speculation on basic foods is driving spiralling prices around the world, which reached record levels earlier this year. The organisation claims the UK government risks condemning millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger by failing to back European regulation to curb excessive speculation.

In the last six months of 2010 alone, rising food prices pushed 44 million more people worldwide into extreme poverty.

Financial players including banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays have taken over food markets, says the World Development Movement’s report, with the total assets of financial speculators in these markets nearly doubling from $65 billion to $126 billion in the last five years. Not a single penny of this has been invested in agriculture.

The report, ‘Broken Markets’, finds that:

•...

Groups from 13 developing countries have today slammed UK climate loans, set to be agreed in South Africa this week. The loans are to be given through the World Bank.

Community leaders in countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Mozambique and Yemen have written to British cabinet ministers Chris Huhne and Andrew Mitchell rejecting the loans the UK is providing to their countries to help them cope with climate change.

In their letter they say the UK and other rich industrialised countries, who have done the most to cause climate change, owe a ‘climate debt’ to poor countries who are worst affected by the phenomenon. ‘Climate loans will only lock our countries into further debt, and further impoverish our people,’ reads the letter.

New research from the World Development Movement and Jubilee Debt Campaign reveals that the UK’s climate funding is pushing the world’s poorest countries deeper into debt.  Their report, ‘Climate Loan Sharks’, also condemns the World Bank for imposing its own priorities on countries...

• Price of world’s biggest food crop doubles 
• Latest official figures show 5.8% annual rise in UK food prices 

The World Development Movement has warned that a new ‘summer of speculation’ is fuelling record food prices, as new figures show that financial betting on maize prices has contributed to a doubling in the cost of corn over the past year. 

The anti-poverty group is calling for regulation to curb financial gambling on the price of basic foods, which international experts say is contributing to skyrocketing prices and pushing millions of people into hunger and poverty.

The price of maize – more of which is grown than any other staple food crop­ – has increased by 102% since April 2010. New research from the World Development Movement reveals that hedge funds, investment banks and others own futures contracts for maize worth $15.7 billion, up 127.5% from a year ago. 

Two of the UK’s most popular foods, popcorn and cornflakes, are made from maize. It is Africa’s most important staple food, and a key...

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Press release, 19th April 2011

• Canadian First Nations representatives to voice opposition in person at RBS AGM
• New research shows that, since public bail-out in 2008, RBS has raised more than £5.6 billion for companies involved in controversial Canadian tar sands projects, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months

Representatives from some of Canada’s First Nations are today preparing to demand in person that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stops financing the controversial tar sands industry in Alberta, Canada, at the bank’s AGM today. [1]

The protest comes as new research, published by a coalition of UK and North American NGOs, shows that since being bailed out with public money in 2008, RBS has raised £5.6 billion in corporate financing to companies involved in Alberta’s tar sands extraction and pipeline development, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months. [2]

The First Nations representatives are expected to arrive at the AGM at RBS’s global head quarters in Gogarburn, Edinburgh, at 1pm. They will take into the AGM a photo petition and motions from UK taxpayers angry that the bank is investing their money in tar sands extraction and use the meeting to call on the board to cease financing tar sands...

Press release, 28.02.2011

• Government aid spending plans criticised by World Development Movement
• Government accused of fighting terrorism, instead of poverty, with the aid budget
• 0.7 target only reached through double counting of aid and climate money

The Department for International Development will tomorrow announce changes to the way aid money is spent. Aid for ‘fragile’ states will be a priority, as will maximum value for money and the UK's national interests. It will also cut aid to UN agencies that support agricultural development in favour of emergency relief programmes. The news has been met with criticism from anti-poverty campaigners, the World Development Movement who criticised the government for 'fighting terrorism, not poverty, with the aid budget'.

Julian Oram, head of campaigns and policy at the World Development Movement said:

Defence spending has been cut and it's clear that the government is looking to plug the hole by raiding the already tiny international development budget. The government will be fighting terrorism, not poverty, with the aid budget. This is shameful because aid is supposed to help provide health care and education to the poorest countries in the world, not...

This year, the British public will be paying more for their Christmas turkey because of City speculators. Betting on commodity prices by hedge funds and investment banks has led to rapidly rising prices of animal feed [1], driving up the retail price of turkeys.

Paul Kelly, an award winning turkey farmer and breeder, warned that turkey prices this Christmas are going to be more expensive than last year and we will be paying up to £3 extra for our festive bird. He said:

“It’s all down to feed prices which have been rising at a rapid pace this year. And it’s entirely fuelled by speculators in the commodity food markets. It’s got nothing to do with wheat stocks. It’s city money men who are driving these prices.”

In spite of the wildfires destroying Russian wheat during the summer, the US and Europe and other grain producing regions have had good harvests this year and the UN even issued a statement saying that global wheat stocks are sufficient.[2]

Since the financial crisis began, market analysts have noted a wave of speculative money pouring into commodity derivative markets, including food. Many experts link this activity by banks and hedge funds to recent volatility and sudden inflation in the retail costs of food and energy.[3]

Paul Kelly adds...

• New figures produced on eve of World Food Day reveal new wave of financial speculation on wheat and corn
• Speculation drives surge in wheat and corn prices to two-year highs

New evidence that speculation on food by hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks is fuelling the rise of bread and other basic foods has been released by anti-poverty campaigners on World Food Day, October 16, 2010.

The World Development Movement has calculated that over the summer, financial speculators in Chicago alone bought up corn futures contracts equivalent to nearly 1.7 billion bushels [1] – more than the annual consumption of Brazil, a country of some 260million people and the world’s third largest consumer of corn.

The figure for wheat over the same period was 241 million bushels [1], equivalent to seven times the amount consumed by Kenya, or half the UK’s total annual wheat harvest.

Between April and September 2010, world prices for wheat rose by over 40 per cent, while corn has risen by over 30 per cent. The campaigners say that these prices rises, which are the highest since the food crisis that gripped the world in 2008, are contributing to higher inflation in the UK for basics foodstuffs such as bread and pasta in the UK, as well causing...

WDM condemns the link between public money and Cairn’s Arctic drilling. RBS underwrote loan to oil company one month before it acquired rig for arctic drilling.

A coalition of environmental and social justice organisations in the UK are condemning the use of public money through the 83% publicly-owned RBS to provide finance for Cairn energy that may have enabled them to start controversial offshore drilling in Arctic Greenland.

See coverage on Cairn's Greenland drilling here - Quest for oil reaches Earth’s final frontier - Herald

The revelation was made during the weekend that Camp for Climate Action was taking place at the Edinburgh headquarters of RBS [1] and a few days before the Greenpeace boat, the Esperanza, was challenged by a Danish warship near the Cairn rig. [2]

Edinburgh-based oil company Cairn Energy have started drilling in the Davis Straits off the coast of Greenland, nicknamed 'Iceberg Alley and close to where the recent Petermann glacier broke away. According to research that was revealed in the Sunday Herald, [3] RBS loaned $100 million to Cairn Energy on 11 December 2009, and then on 21 December 2009 it...

The US Senate is expected to approve a landmark bill on Wall Street reform later today, covering bank bonuses, financial transparency of complex derivatives, regulation of hedge funds and food markets. This legislation will send shockwaves across the global financial sector, but WDM fears that proposals for a similar EU crack down of the banks may not be backed the UK government.

US legislators have been under enormous public pressure to regulate secretive and complex derivative trading, which is blamed for triggering the global economic crisis.

France and other European nations are strongly supportive of similar proposals at the EU level, but we are concerned that the UK government could seek to block such reforms and are launching a new campaign next week to push the government to take the lead in pushing for financial reform in Europe. We point to the City of London’s track record of lobbying against EU efforts to force the so-called ‘shadow banking’ system out into the open, and are launching a campaign to get the government to crack down on excessive speculation by the banks.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said:

“While the US is passing legislation in this area, the EU is well behind the curve. Because...

14 May 2010

David Cameron has announced today that his government will be the 'greenest government' ever. We welcome the sentiment but we are sceptical and said that ‘history will judge this government on its green credentials by its policies to cut the UK’s emissions dramatically and getting a fair international climate deal, not by turning off its lights at night.’

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said:

"The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition has brought some progress for achieving climate justice. Whilst it's welcome that central government has pledged to cut its emissions by 10 per cent, history will judge this government on its green credentials by its policies to cut the UK’s emissions dramatically and getting a fair international climate deal, not by turning off its lights at night. It doesn't take the scale of the problem seriously, any suggestion that blue and yellow means green government are premature because there are so many unanswered questions about the policies.

"The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition has brought some campaign successes for climate justice. But it has also left a lot of unanswered questions, and media reports suggesting that...

A politically embarrassing stand off is developing as Bangladesh is currently resisting the UK's offer of £60 million of climate finance.

Bangladesh is believed to be resisting the UK's climate finance offer of £60 million due to the UK's insistence that it must be channelled through the World Bank. The UK is pressurising the Bangladeshi government into accepting the finance whilst refusing to consider other managers of the funds, such as through a Bangladeshi fund, which has greater transparency and participation by civil society.

Campaigners from the European Action Group on Climate Change Bangladesh, the World Development Movement and Jubilee Debt Campaign, this morning held a protest outside the Department for International Development on Monday to tell DfID not to force the World Bank on to Bangladesh. At the same time, campaigners in Dhaka in Bangladesh held a mass rally and formed a human chain around the donor conference where the UK has imposed a deadline on the Bangladeshi government to accept their conditions.

The UK is further insisting that the Bangladeshi government provides its own money for the fund, likely to drive the country further into debt. Later in the year, the UK will be giving further money to Bangladesh through the World Bank to...

Bankers resisting plans to cut bonuses and reform the sector at the World Economic Forum have inspired anti-poverty campaigners to renew demands for a financial transaction tax to reduce global inequality.

The World Development Movement, one of the organisations backing the tax, says the additional revenue could finance a ‘green new deal’ in rich nations while providing money for poorer countries to develop low carbon economies and cope with the impact of climate change. The tax would also increase financial stability and dampen the risks of sudden food and oil price rises by deterring reckless speculation on debt, equity and commodity markets.

Julian Oram, head of policy at the World Development Movement said:
"The financial sector has grown way too big for its boots, to the extent that the whole global economy is vulnerable to the fortunes of bankers gambling on the markets.

“It's absurd for bankers to be up in arms about regulation given the damage they’ve caused, but it's encouraging us to campaign harder. This is an industry that generates $50 trillion worth of transactions a year. Taxing just a tiny fraction of this would slow down the financial roulette wheel and generate billions of dollars in public revenue that could be of huge benefit to...

The UK based, anti poverty campaigners, the World Development Movement branded the Copenhagen talks as a ‘shameful and monumental failure.’ 
 
Tim Jones, climate policy officer at the World Development Movement said:
 “This summit has been in complete disarray from start to finish, culminating in a shameful and monumental failure that has condemned millions of people around the world to untold suffering. The leaders of rich countries have refused to lead. They have been captured by business interests at a time when people need leaders to put justice first."

“Rich countries have failed the poorest people in the world and history will judge them harshly. They have failed to offer the emissions cuts that science and justice requires. To say that this ‘deal’ is in any way historic or meaningful is to completely misrepresent the fact that this ‘deal’ is meaningless."

President Obama has presented a ‘deal’ in the form of a Copenhagen Accord. However, it was drafted with participation from just a small number of countries, the majority of them rich. Several developing countries have refused to sign, and it has not been adopted as a UN agreement.

"Countries have been right to resist the signing of the Accord. It would be better to...

The issue of climate finance is a Copenhagen deal breaker for developing countries, and much has been made by Gordon Brown and yesterday, Hillary Clinton, on the need for climate finance.

Both have put forward figures to 'help' developing countries cope with the impact of climate change. But the World Development Movement’s analysis shows that the facts behind the figures add ‘insult to injury' for developing countries. Of the $100 billion 'announced' yesterday by Hillary Clinton, half or more would be financed by carbon trading and developing countries.

Tim Jones, climate policy expert at the World Development Movement said:

“The small print behind the head line grabbing figures adds insult to injury for developing countries. Money that is being announced here is diverted from existing aid budgets; given as loans not aid; and is being financed through a flaw ridden offset scheme. What we need to see is developed countries admitting their historic responsibility for the problem that has brought us all here and offer compensation to developing countries, not bribery, bullying and belligerence.”

The World Development Movement’s analysis reveals that:

Short term finance (2010-2012)

The EU and US are calling for $...

In Copenhagen on Wednesday thousands of protestors marched to the Bella Centre where the climate change negotiations are taking place. At the same time, hundreds of delegates walked out to meet them to create a 'People's Assembly' to discuss positive solutions to climate change. The protestors were met with violence from the Danish police.

World Development Movement policy officer Tim Jones commented from within the Bella Centre:

“Today thousands of people sought to create a people’s assembly to get voices heard offering real solutions to the climate crisis. The people’s assembly was stopped by police who committed unprovoked violence on both protestors and official delegates to the UN negotiations. This is a moment in history where the right to protest is of vital importance. The threat that we are facing from climate change is overwhelming.”
 
At the same time as the protests, the Danish government was seeking to push an unjust and ineffective agreement on developing countries, outside of the transparent process. The reintroduction of a so-called ‘Danish text’ would override all the official negotiations, kill the Kyoto protocol and release rich countries from their...

In response to Ed Miliband's energy statement to parliament today, the World Development Movement reacted with disappointment and argued that the UK's credibility at Copenhagen has been 'shattered'.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said:
"Ed Miliband today has shattered the UK's credibility at the Copenhagen summit by going ahead with disastrous plans for new coal. His decision to allow two new dirty coal power stations to be built will see increasing emissions long into the future. He has acknowledged that carbon capture technology may not work, but nonetheless hasn't introduced a safety net to protect the climate if this unproven technology fails.

"Furthermore, he's done nothing to shut down old coal plants which can continue to pollute for decades to come. This policy flies in the face of recommendations from the government's own climate advisors.

"This will continue to increase our climate debt to the world's poorest people. And in turn, this will lock in greater inequality and injustice faced by people, like those in the Philippines or El Salvador who are currently suffering from climate-change related weather disasters, such as flooding and typhoons."