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Views from the Center

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July 21, 2008

Gore Urges End to U.S. Fossil Fuel Power in Ten Years--Here's How to Get America's Working Families' Support

In a landmark speech last week that deserved more attention than it received from the mainstream media, former U.S. vice president and Nobel Prize laureate Al Gore challenged the United States to produce 100% of its electricity from carbon-free renewable energy within 10 years. To help low-income and working families cope with the cost of the transition, Gore suggested cutting payroll taxes and making up the difference with CO2 taxes.

Administrator
July 17, 2008

President Bush Should Order the EPA to Waive the Ethanol Mandate Next Week

Governor Rick Perry of Texas, representing a major livestock-producing state hammered by rising feed costs, has petitioned the Environmental Policy Agency to suspend half of the mandated level for blending ethanol in gasoline. The EPA has the authority under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to suspend all or part of the mandate for up to a year if there is a "significant renewable feedstock disruption or other market circumstance" and the administrator is supposed to respond to Governor Perry's petition by July 24.

Kimberly Ann Elliott
July 9, 2008

Scrap the G8

Once again the G8 has come up tragically short on climate change and a host of urgent problems affecting poor people in developing countries. The good news is that they are at least discussing the right topics. The first Hokkaido G8 document, on the World Economy spills lots of ink on relations between rich and developing economies, including for example, reaffirmation of support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

Lawrence MacDonald
July 8, 2008

Another Banner Year for IFC -- NOW Is The Time for A Big Push into Renewable Energy

This is a joint posting with David Wheeler
The International Finance Corporation, the private sector investment arm of the World Bank, is set to have yet another banner year with profits in the range of $2 billion. As the IFC's equity stakes in services, telecommunications and particularly in oil and gas have grown, so have its profits. In FY07, IFC invested more than $8 billion of its own money and mobilized nearly $4 billion more. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it invested about $1.4 billion, doubling its investments from the previous year. In FY08, these numbers look to be even larger. If the IFC continues on its current path, in five years its portfolio will be larger than that of the World Bank itself.

Vijaya Ramachandran

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