Performative and Insightful: The 2019 Annual World Bank Meetings
This month, I joined a delegation of 10 amazing youth organizers in the DMV area. Together, we advocated for more climate action by the World Bank at the 2019 Annual World Bank meetings in Washington D.C. I sat across the table from Philippe Le Houérou, the CEO of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). I asked the World Bank when they plan to fully divest from fossil fuel investments and received a frustratingly deceptive response. I met amazing organizers, activists, and individuals of the climate justice movement.
I must thank every person who welcomed me into this space, patiently answered my questions, and encouraged me to speak up. I’m excited to continue to build my vocabulary and understanding of the complexities of climate action and climate justice.
Here are a few important concepts and ideas I learned this month:
1. Civil Society Organizations (CSO) – According to the World Bank, a CSO is “the wide array of non-governmental and not for profit organizations that have a presence in public life, express the interests and values of their members and others, based on ethical, cultural, political, scientific, religious or philanthropic considerations.”
As a member of a CSO, you can attend gatherings like the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) at the 2019 Annual Meetings at the World Bank in Washington, DC, which is exactly what I did.
2. SustainUS – An organization that empowers young people in taking creative action to demand justice and sustainability on a global stage.
In October 2019, I was part of a delegation of 10 young people who attended the World Bank Annual Meetings to advocate for climate action and climate justice from the World Bank Group.
3. The World Bank Group – The World Bank is an international financial institution. According to their website, there are five organizations under the World Bank Group name: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The World Bank Group is run by a board of 25 Executive Directors. Each Executive Director represents one or a group of countries.
On the last day of the 2019 World Bank Annual Meetings, on behalf of more than 100 CSO’s and the Big Shift Coalition, our SustainUS delegation delivered a letter to President Malpass and every Executive Director calling for the Bank to take more action on climate change and fully divest from fossil fuel projects by 2020.
A study commissioned by the German NGO Urgewald revealed that the “World Bank Group’s active energy project finance is three times greater for fossil fuels than for climate-friendly renewable energy sources – 21 billion US dollars for coal, oil and gas and only 7 billion US dollars for sectors like solar energy or wind power.” While the Bank still touts that they have not directly supported the construction of new coal-fired power plants since 2013, it has been providing support for fossil fuel investments in other ways. One example is by supporting downstream oil, gas, and coal production.
4. Upstream and downstream oil, gas, and coal production – Upstream production usually refers to the product that companies extract or produce from raw materials (i.e. crude oil, natural gas). Downstream production usually refers to products that are ultimately used by the end user (i.e. oil refineries, petrochemical plants, petroleum products distributors, retail outlets and natural gas distribution companies). It is important to make the distinction between upstream and downstream production because the Bank likes to tout the progress its made with divesting from upstream production projects, while ignoring its active investments in downstream production projects.
At the World Bank Annual Meetings, I asked a World Bank manager who works in climate finance, “When will the World Bank stop funding fossil fuel projects?”
The response I received included an explanation that 1) “The World Bank will no longer finance upstream oil and gas after 2019, with a caveat for exceptional circumstances” and that 2) “The World Bank hasn’t financed any coal since 2010.”
This response from the Bank is extremely deceptive and frustratingly inaccurate.
Firstly, the Bank currently holds equity shares in at least 12 oil and gas exploration and production projects worth at least 512 million USD (Source: Urgewald). So in order to reach the goal of no longer financing upstream oil and gas after 2019, the Bank will need to fully divest from all of these equity investments by 2019. I am wondering, is this feasible?
Secondly, while the World Bank has not directly supposed upstream coal projects since 2013… In March 2016, MIGA, a member of the World Bank Group, approved a financial guarantee of USD 783 million for loans from the German Deutsche Bank and the Japanese Bank to support the South African energy group, Eskom, for a “capacity expansion program” (Source: Urgewald). This program includes the construction of transmission lines that will transport electricity from Eskom’s new coal-fired power plants. This is a prime example of “downstream” coal production and how the Bank tries to hide their support of downstream production-related projects.
More information about how the Bank supports fossil fuel projects can be found on Urgewald’s website. Urgewald also recently created a Global Coal Exit List, which provides information on companies and their coal-related business activities. There are more than 200 registered users from the finance sector, with financial institutions representing nearly US$10 trillion assets under management on the Global Coal Exit List.
Overall, the experience humanized a gigantic institution like the World Bank Group by reminding me that these institutions only exist because of the people who breathe life into the Bank’s very sturdy walls.
At the World Bank, people…
- Define catchy phrases like “climate-smart” agriculture (If you read into the World Bank’s definition of “climate-smart”, it’s quite vague)
- Create frameworks and decide which ones they will use to monitor and evaluate a project
- Are motivated by the monetary size of their projects
- May neglect to receive true consent from the affected communities, which can lead to serious consequences
- Hide behind the physical structures, hierarchies, and marketing strategies of their institutions
In general, people manipulate data to support arguments across the entire spectrum of climate finance.
From Bank to CSO representatives, it was interesting to hear so many different opinions on the path forward to address climate change, which included:
- Doing absolutely nothing and maintaining the status quo
- Attempting to placate dissatisfaction with promises of slow, incremental progress
- Championing some really big, ambitious agendas
- Protesting multilateral development banks… for decades!
- Focusing on mobilizing and organizing for their respective movement
Or maybe, it’s a mixture of a little bit of everything.
Change is not possible without coalitions of people who speak up, demand, fight, and protest for justice.
Like many aspects of life, there is no clear cut solution to addressing climate change. Nevertheless, we must invite nuance into our conversations. We must view these topics through different lenses and mindsets. We must support each other and recognize incremental progress.
We must elevate and lift up each other’s voices.
This makes me wonder:
- Can we restructure the incentives process in complex institutions like the World Bank so that we can shift towards supporting smaller distributed renewable energy development projects?
- What is the purpose of the Annual World Bank Meetings? Where are the decisions actually made? How can we effectively influence and persuade?
And lastly… Can I live my life differently so that it better represents my own values? This includes being more conscious… living a slower and sustainable life… focusing less on money and individual success… and prioritizing building community and strengthening relationships.
A big part of this awareness came from learning about “white supremacy culture from dismantlingracism.org, which is the “idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.”
Although I am not white, after reading Tema Okun’s article in “white supremacy culture,” I became acutely aware of how white supremacy culture that has seeped into my job, my mindset, and my life. This has been quite eye-opening, unsettling, and frustrating. I want to feel less obliged to follow hardcore agendas and timelines. I want to focus on feelings, rather than outcomes. I want to be more grounded in my own values/expectations rather than that of others.
Needless to say, this has been a month of serious challenges and growth.
Thank you for this experience and am ready to continue to learn more.
How do you feel about climate change?
Should we be holding multilateral development banks, like the World Bank, accountable for the role they play in climate change?