Reuters reports:
The World Bank’s board on Tuesday agreed to a new energy strategy that will limit financing of coal-fired power plants to “rare circumstances,” as the Washington-based global development powerhouse seeks to address the impact of climate change.
Hanlon’s Razor asserts: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Unfortunately it has been pointed out repeatedly that the diversion of resources from critical infrastructure maintenance and development will inevitably harm the ‘poor’ first and disproportionately. Stupidity is not an adequate explanation for this kind of criminal negligence.
It MUST be malice.
Johan makes a very powerful point: “Of course these unhappy people are ideal guinea pigs for cynical experiments in energy production…”.
If we still lived in a real world, the denial of energy to poor people would be called genocide or hate crimes. But since the people doing it are politically-correct, such crimes are okay.
In some areas of the developing world, coal is a good energy option. In others, maybe less so. If the hinterlands of Africa or Latin America have natural gas, that may be a better source.
On a broader note, though, the developing world should be developing through private-sector investment driven by hard profit motives. All other “development” is unsustainable charity. The World Bank and other “charitable” development operations are almost certainly a drag on poor countries instead of a boost.
Private charity at a small scale, to relieve suffering and to teach more effective ways of farming and building and so on, should perhaps be encouraged. Even that should be a guide toward self-sufficiency, not a decades-long operation.
Anymoose: It it only were stupidity! Unfortunately it is a combination of that, added ignorance (lacking true knowledge of climate physics) and total lack of concern for the people in developing countries. Those need cheap energy coming from a plug in the wall and a sturdy post in the backyard, and they need it NOW! Of course these unhappy people are ideal guinea pigs for cynical experiments in energy production, because these can always be masked behind lofty declarations of concern and humanity etc. Try and start experimental energy production for the Pennsylvanian steel works and see what happens! (The risk is there, of course) The people in Congo and Mali are helpless victims of cruel greenies who push their own ends in the name of compassion.
Stupidity!!!