World Bank Chief Says Clean Energy a Vital Issue

Clean energy, renewable energy and climate change may well become the World Bank’s main focus in years to come despite the issue’s absence from the lender’s formal agenda at its meeting this weekend, President Paul Wolfowitz said on Thursday.

“We had clean energy on the formal agenda in the fall. It will come up again this coming fall. It’s a major focus of the bank’s work and it might well be the principal focus of the bank in a few years from now,” Wolfowitz told reporters.
A World Bank report last year found that current financing from multilateral lenders like the Washington-based bank as well as governments and the private sector “cannot lead to a meaningful transition to a low-carbon economy.”

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