Point Carbon reported this morning that the World Bank has bought 2.6 million Kyoto emission rights from the Czech Republic.
So I checked the World Bank website in case something had changed. But no, their mission is still:
“… to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results and to help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors.”
And:
“The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world.”
And:
“The Bank delivers technical, financial and other assistance to those most in need and where it can have the greatest impact and promote growth: to the poorest countries, fragile states and the Arab world; to middle-income countries; to solving global public goods issues; and to delivering knowledge and learning services.”
See where this is going?
The Czech Republic isn’t a poor country. It’s not fragile. It’s not in the Arab world. It’s not a middle income country (it is classified by the World Bank as a high income country). Ah, yes! Climate change is a “global public goods issue”. So it’s ok to for the World Bank to spend something like twenty million Euro on an EU member state! And if it’s someone else’s money, since when was it the World Bank’s job to trade credits among EU states? Can’t the Spanish (or whoever is behind it) pick up the phone themselves and call the Czechs rather than distract the World Bank from more serious stuff?
Perhaps the World Bank solved the hunger thing already.
