세계은행(World Bank)이 기후변화 대처를 위한 세계 각 지역 수력발전소 건설을 지원 프로젝트를 전개하고 나섰다고 『워싱턴포스트(WP)』가 5월8일(현지시간) 보도했다.

WP에 따르면 세계은행은 우선 일단 콩코, 잠비아, 네팔 등지에 수력발전소 건설을 위한 기금 마련에 나섰다.

수력발전소 건설을 위한 은행들의 대출은 지난 1990년대 크게 줄었으나 최근 수년간 서서히 증가추세를 보이고 있다고 WP는 지적했다.

WB의 레이첼 카이트 부총재는 "대형 수력발전소는 특히 아시아와 동남아시아 지역 발전에 커다란 부분을 차지하고 있다"고 설명했다.

WP는 "수력발전소 건설은 경제적으로 큰 장점이 있지만 환경보호 차원에서 문제가 돼 왔다"며 "지난 2009년 세계은행 자체 보고서에서 '환경 및 지역 사회 리스크가 너무 크다'고 지적됐다"고 밝혔다.

세계은행의 김용 총재는 "개발도상국가들의 발전에 있어 가장 중요한 것 증 하나가 바로 에너지 개발"이라며 수력발전소 개발의 중요성을 강조했다.

그러나 환경보호 단체들은 수력발전소 건설이 일부 기업들에게만 도움이 되며 현지 사회 및 경제에 도움이 되지 않는다고 주장하고 있다.

WP는 그러나 수력발전소가 기존의 발전소 보다 훨씬 더 환경에 이롭다는 주장을 언급하면서 "콩고강의 경우, 4만㎽의 수력에너지를 공급할 수 있다"고 설명했다.

한편 이 프로젝트를 위해 아프리카 개발 은행이 참여를 논의했으며 세계은행은 수천만달러의 지원 투자금을 공급할 예정이라고 WP는 덧붙였다.

 

 

 

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim says he is determined to make a difference in the world’s response to global warming. In a major report last year, the bank warned that the globally agreed-upon goal of limiting the planet’s temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius was slipping away, and that the more likely 4-degree rise would devastate some countries and plunge more people into poverty.

 

         Are there things the World Bank can do to fight global warming besides funding hydroelectric power?

But what can the bank do about it?
One emerging reaction is a return - in force - to the construction of large-scale hydroelectric plants in an effort to power up poorer African and Asian countries without boosting their use of fossil fuels to developed world levels. Beyond that, the bank is exploring a number of options. In recent interviews, Kim and Rachel Kyte, the bank’s vice president for sustainable development, discussed a number of options:

Carbon markets. Advocates of carbon trading as a way to reduce emissions have been dispirited by the collapse of Europe’s system. But Kim still sees the development of a global price for carbon as key. Kyte speaks of carbon as “one of the currencies of the 21st century,” and said the bank is exploring how it might patch together the many local and national carbon markets that are being developed.

The general aim is to treat carbon as its own asset class - you pay to use it and reap rewards for saving it - and create systems so that, for example, timber companies or nations are compensated for extending forest cover, and farmers get paid for growing crops or adopting management techniques that bury greenhouse gases in the soil.

“The world needs a robust carbon price and we are trying to work out the best role for us to play to catalyze it to happen,” Kyte said.

Ending carbon subsidies. Allied with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank wants to see the price of fossil fuels reflect the true cost, including that of the environmental damage caused by a warming planet. The IMF has estimated governments subsidize fossil fuels by $1.9 trillion a year - some of it through direct cash payments to keep fuel cheap, some indirectly by allowing the cost of “externalities” to be absorbed by society at large in the form, for example, of increased pollution. Both institutions want to see the practice ended, and are leaning hard on nations like Egypt to end fuel and electricity subsidy programs, while asking countries like the U.S. to raise fuel taxes to account for the social cost of carbon use.

Agriculture. Kim and Kyte talk about farming and plant genomics as among their most promising areas of focus. Both say they are optimistic that technological breakthroughs could produce major benefits. No-till farming, for example, keeps carbon buried in the soil that would otherwise be churned into the atmosphere during planting. In addition, scientists are working on plant strains that fix more nitrogen into the soil, and have a larger root structure that keeps more carbon underground.

Plant scientists caution that a “magic bullet” may be elusive: Some of the wheat or sorghum strains that bury more carbon do so at the expense of food yield. Kyte said she is convinced that “we are on the edge of real technological change.”

It is not just development agencies such as the World Bank that are involved. Agribusinesses and food companies are also focused on how major crops can be altered to live with less water, hotter temperatures - and perhaps pull more carbon out of the atmosphere as well.

 

Urban planning.  Kim said Chinese officials have appealed to him directly for help in urban transit and other issues that might relieve the country’s pollution problems. Kyte said transportation is a particular focus, and she says she has a list of mayors in several dozen major cities working with her on ways to curb auto use. She quoted one as saying “success … is not when the poor start driving cars but when the rich start using mass transit.”