New climate fund looking more like 'Greedy Corporate Fund'

Kirsty Wright, climate justice campaigner writes from the UN climate talks in Durban

A year on from the World Bank out of climate finance campaign launch at the Cancun talks, last week members of the global coalition reunited outside COP17. Last year’s talks concluded with an agreement to design a new Green Climate Fund within the UNFCCC. While many welcomed this, others remained cautious because of the World Bank’s role as ‘trustee’. As the fund had not been designed, over the last year there has been much still to play for in terms of how the fund would be shaped, and to whose benefit.

Since then, rich industrialised governments, spearheaded by the UK, have continued the perpetual shift towards financialisation and corporatisation of seemingly everything proposed within the climate talks. By the time the Durban talks began, the inclusion of a ‘private sector facility’, which would inevitably preference the financial sector and corporations over the people impacted by climate change, meant the fund was already looking more like a Greedy Corporate Fund. Read the letter from 163 civil society organisations concerned about the design of the fund, which was presented to governments attending the Durban climate talks. Below are a series of short videos from the day.

Lidy Nacpil from Jubilee South Movement on Debt and Development explains what the day of action was about:

Nnimmo Bassey, Director of Environment Rights Action in Nigeria, and Chair of Friends of the Earth International, explains to the assembly why the World Bank should have no role in climate finance:

Uncle Sam, representing the interests of the United States of America, Banks, Corporations and ‘the 1%’, shake hands with Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, and explains why they are such good friends:

In the next few days, country representatives inside the negotiations will decide on accepting the fund. If it is passed as it is, it could be as bad, if not worse, than the World Bank’s climate funds that have already proved themselves highly spurious in terms of their social and environmental standards. You can join us in speaking out by emailing the UK government.