Greenpeace reminds ADB of its ‘two mistakes’

Friday May 5 2006

HYDERABAD: Well-motivated and idealistic Greenpeacers, who are like the ‘Warriors of Rainbow’, today unveiled a banner at the Hussain Sagar lake with the monolitihic Buddha statue as a backdrop, to remind ADB of its responsibility to invest in clean energy.

Borrowing words from a Buddhist tenet, the activists’ banner read ‘‘There are only two mistakes one can make in fighting climate change: Not standing, and not going all the way.’’

Greenpeace India Climate Change campaigner K Srinivas said that the ADB is guilty of committing both the mistakes.

They have taken only initial steps towards investing in renewable energy and are far from a commitment to go all the way to prevent climate change, he observed.

With the energy-driven impacts of climate change poised to hit Asia’s poorest the hardest, Srinivas challenged the ADB to choose which direction it would take. Would the bank choose to fight climate change or fund it, he asked.

The ADB’s announcement of a $ 1 billion clean energy fund by 2008 could be a significant step forward, if it is used solely for renewable energy projects and energy efficiency programmes. However, he warned that any attempt to include so-called ‘clean coal’ in clean energy fund is preposterous.

Greenpeace also released a report titled ‘Irrelevance or Leadership’, with data clearly indicating ADB for its flawed approach to ‘alleviating poverty’ between 2000 and 2006, has only allocated less than 5 per cent of its total lending portfolio to renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

The report asserted that the only effective way to stop dangerous climate change is by stopping the use of climate-destroying fossil fuels and shifting to clean, renewable energy. It pointed out the potential of renewable energy is enormous and can often outstrip the energy demands of all countries.

The world’s wind resources are estimated to be over twice the world’s projected electricity consumption in 2020. The total amount of energy irradiated from the Sun to the earth’s surface is enough to provide 10,000 times the annual global consumption.