Publication date: 22 October 2004

Summary
The business community, and the world as a whole has a clear vested interest in one, clear, global system for protecting the climate, for agreeing emissions reduction targets, and for carbon trading and emissions reductions. Such a situation would create lucrative business opportunities in carbon trading and renewables technology. How long will the United States stay out of the game?

installing wind turbines in the Philippines

Greenpeace is set to challenge James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, to establish a new direction for World Bank lending on energy and to immediately increase lending on renewable energy projects to equal lending on fossil fuels. Greenpeace would welcome the opportunity to work with the World Bank to implement clean energy projects in the developing world if such a re-balancing in its energy portfolio took place.

It is estimated that 2 billion people in the world currently don't have access to electricity. The World Bank, which was set up with the aim of alleviating poverty and is funded by taxpayers in supporting countries, has over the past decade spent 18 times more on fossil fuels and the conventional energy sector than on renewable energy (2).

Greenpeace UK Executive Director Stephen Tindale said, "By shifting funding to renewable energy the World Bank could dramatically improve the livelihoods and prospects of billions of people in the developed and developing worlds while protecting the climate."

He continued, "Climate change poses the most significant environmental challenge facing the world today and its impact will be felt disproportionately by the billion plus people in the developing world who live on less than a dollar a day. They are the ones who are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events, reductions in rainfall and changes in disease vectors."

He added "There is an environmental, economic and social imperative to help the countries in the South develop without compromising their future or exploiting their resources in an unsustainable way. Renewable energy is one of the key ways to achieve this."

The renewable energy industry needs public support from institutions like the World Bank to ramp up investment significantly and promote its product, especially in the rapidly growing economies of the developing world.

There is a precedent for a shift in the focus of World Bank lending. In the 1990s, projected demand for refrigeration in the rapidly growing economies of the developing world - and especially China - demonstrated that the problem of ozone depletion was set to become much worse.

The World Bank, along with Greenpeace, worked with the Chinese government and one of the biggest manufacturer of refrigerators in the world to produce a refrigerator that met the needs of the increasingly prosperous Chinese population without making a clearly identified environmental problem even worse.

Backing the Greenpeace proposal Wei Lin of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association said, "Renewable energy can play an important role in China's future. Support from the World Bank for China's renewable energy efforts would be a significant boost to the country's plans. With the World Bank's help, China could deliver considerable renewable energy capacity, foster the industry and develop skills to harness renewables. For example, for wind energy alone there is the potential to develop 20GW by 2020, the equivalent of more than 7 nuclear power stations the size of the UK's Sizewell B plant".

The call will be made at the Greenpeace Business lecture (1) in central London on 13th May.

The new initiative from Greenpeace comes as the World Bank considers the results of the Extractive Industries Review (EIR) conducted on behalf of the World Bank by Professor Emil Salim of Indonesia (2). The EIR found that funding extractive industry projects was not a suitable use of public money in the vast majority of cases and does not promote sustainable development. It recommends that the Bank re-allocate funding towards renewable energy.

Greenpeace is one of 300 organisations that have written to Wolfensohn calling on him to radically reform the way the World Bank supports oil and mining industries. Others include Oxfam, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth as well as investors representing over $400 billion. Six Nobel laureates including Archbishop Desmond Tutu have also urged the Bank to adopt the review's recommendations.

In the letter to Wolfensohn, Tutu and the other Nobel Laureates said, "War, poverty, climate change, greed, corruption, and ongoing violations of human rights - these scourges are linked to the oil and mining industries. Your efforts to create a world without poverty need not exacerbate these problems.

"The Review provides you an extraordinary opportunity to direct the resources of the World Bank Group in a way that is truly oriented towards a better future for all humanity."

For more information contact Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255.

Editor's notes:


(1) The Greenpeace Business Lecture is taking place at the Royal Society of Arts, 8 John Adam Street, London WC2 on 13 May 2004. Registration begins at 5.45pm and the lecture starts at 6.30pm prompt. Media spaces are strictly limited and must be organised in advance.

(2) For more information on the EIR, visit www.eireview.org

Margot Wallstrom, EU Environment Commissioner

On Monday 13th October, EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrom will address business leaders at the Greenpeace Business Lecture in London (1). She will talk about the importance of new European REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) legislation, which aims to control the manufacture and use of all chemicals made and used in Europe.

To coincide with the speech Greenpeace is releasing the report 'Safer Chemicals within Reach - Using the Substitution Principle to drive Green Chemistry'. The report details why it is crucial that the final EU legislation is strengthened to include the principle of substitution - i.e. if a company is using a hazardous chemical in a product when a safer alternative exists they will be legally obliged to stop using the hazardous chemical.

Current chemical regulations allow companies to use chemicals in household products despite a serious lack of data on their potential health effects. These include substances described by the EU as 'chemicals of very high concern' which are known to cause cancers, genetic damage, attack the reproductive organs or build up in the human body.

The effects of hazardous chemicals in household products on people's health were highlighted in a recent EU report undertaken by Lancaster University. It found that UK mothers have some of the highest levels of brominated flame-retardants in their breast milk in the world (2).

The new Greenpeace report includes case studies of companies who have successfully implemented substitution. For example H&M clothing - one of Europe's largest retail chains - have successfully phased out chemicals such as brominated flame retardants, organtotins and phthalates from their clothing lines in favour of substitutes. The company states 'we have found that anything is possible as long as you set clear guidelines on what is not acceptable. We have not had to compromise on fashion or quality in a way that has harmed our business. Prices may have gone up temporarily but as soon as mass production has started, the prices have gone back to previous levels'. (3)

Other case studies include:

• Marks and Spencer - who have voluntarily phased out the use of PVC in its packaging, handbags, belts and shoes and replaced them with safer alternatives because of evidence that phthalates in PVC accumulate in human body fat and can cause disruption to hormones.
• IKEA - who have replaced a range of hazardous chemical products with safer alternatives
• Sony - who have developed chemically safer circuit boards for television sets, VCRs and DVD players.

Greenpeace is not the only organisation calling for this common sense approach to be central to the new chemicals policy. In June 2003 the UK's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommended that substitution be adopted as the core goal of chemicals legislation.

REACH has to date been opposed by members of the chemical industry on the basis of cost, which is estimated by the EU to be about 0.05% of the European chemicals industry's annual turn over (4).

Mark Strutt Greenpeace toxics campaigner said, "The idea behind this report is not rocket science. If we know a chemical can cause cancer or genetic damage and we know there is a safer alternative, then production of the dangerous chemicals should no longer be allowed."

He continued, "Companies and governments need to see that tackling the effects of hazardous chemicals - from increased allergies to major diseases like cancers - cost individuals and families dear, but society also pays. Increased hospital bills, sick leave and environmental clean up are just some of the hidden costs."

European Commission information suggests that allergies (in many cases linked to the chemicals which should be regulated) cost Europe €45 billion each year. Another recent report finds that the economic benefits from reduced health problems and corresponding productivity will be roughly ten times the estimated costs of making the changes. And that's without taking into account the potential environmental benefits of the REACH system (5).

For more information contact the Greenpeace Press Office on 0207 865 8255

Notes to editors

1. Margot Wallstrom will address the Greenpeace Business Conference at 6pm on Monday 13th October. The conference is expected to end around 8.15pm and is followed by a drinks reception to which will finish around 9.15pm. The conference venue is the Royal Society of Arts, London, WC2. If you would like to attend the lecture then please contact Louise Edge at the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8115.

2. Lancaster University report cited in Report 344 September 2003. Only women in the US were found to have higher levels of PBDE's in their breastmilk -apparently reflecting greater use of the compounds in products. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE's) are used as flame retardants in plastics, polyurethane foam and textiles and are known to accumulate in humans and wildlife. PBDE's are known hormone disrupters and can affect human reproduction.

3. Page 14, 15 - Safer chemicals within Reach - using the substitution principle to drive green chemistry"(Greenpeace October, 2003).

4. The EU White Paper, Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy, Feb 2001, (which first proposed the REACH system) estimated that the total costs of REACH would be 2.1bn euros, costing industry just 0.05% of its yearly turnover.

5. RDT Info, Magazine for European Research, Issue no 29, April 2001 from an article called Elusive Allergies.