Climatewire and The New York Times quoted CGD senior fellow David Wheeler on Wolrd Bank financing for clean technology.
From the article:
""The industrializing poor countries themselves have suddenly, in the space of two years, left that argument behind. It's been invalidated by their own behavior," said David Wheeler, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.
Brazil and India step up investment pace
China aims to spend 34 percent of its $586 billion stimulus package on green projects, as well as $100 billion to upgrade the rail and transmission grid systems that one report calls the "backbone of China's clean energy economy." Brazil has invested more than $11 billion into ethanol production and has created a $1 billion conservation fund to help meet its 36 percent emissions reduction pledge.
Meanwhile, India, Wheeler pointed out in a report, is poised to demand that the country's utilities buy a minimum of 5 percent of their grid purchase from renewable energy sources this year, with an increase to 15 percent by 2020. The incremental cost: $50 billion. That, others note, is on top of India's unilateral pledge to reduce its carbon intensity by 24 percent.
"India's intransigent negotiating posture has conveyed the impression that it will not accept any carbon emissions limits without full compensation by rich countries and the adoption of more stringent carbon limitations by those countries. This impression is simply wrong," Wheeler wrote, adding in an interview, "Suddenly, I think we're in a new game.”"