World Bank-required emissions standards will just put electricity more out of reach without providing any public health benefits. Poor people need power — especially the electric kind. That would improve public health more than anything.
Reuters reports:
The World Bank said on Tuesday it was planning “aggressive action” to help developing nations cut emissions of soot and other air pollutants blamed for causing climate change, in a shift also meant to protect human health and aid crop growth.
Of its funding to poor nations, almost 8 percent – $18 billion from 2007-12 – goes to sectors such as energy, farming, waste and transport that have a potential to cut emissions, a bank report said.
The bank said it would shift policy to insist that such projects in future – it did not predict levels of funding – included a component to curb air pollution.
“We will try to turn it (the funding) into aggressive action” to cut the pollutants, Rachel Kyte, vice president of sustainable development at the World Bank, told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting a 38-nation group in Oslo looking at ways to cut short-term air pollution.