- Bruce Rich
- Environmental Forum
- Setptember-October 2013
- p. 20
Note: Since this column was written, the World Bank has pledged to halt all new financing of fossil fuels, but the environmental and social conflicts associated with mining and other extractive projects persist.World Bank President Kim praised the IFC (International Finance Corporation--private sector investment branch of the World Bank) as a model for the rest of the World Bank Group, despite ongoing environmental and social conflicts in IFC extractive projects not just in South Africa, but in Peru, Mongolia, Colombia, and West Africa. He also lauded the bank’s $3 billion loan to South Africa in 2010 for the Medupi project, the fourth largest new coal plant on earth, with annual greenhouse emissions greater than over 100 of the world’s countries. He maintained that “there was a very strong sense that this clean coal project was the way to go.”
