UN Climate Funds Given To Japanese Companies To Build Coal Power Stations!

By Paul Homewood

http://www.newsweek.com/oopsie-1-billion-un-funds-fight-climate-change-built-coal-power-plants-instead-288497

Woops! Newsweek report:

About $1 billion in Japanese funding that Japan claimed was part of a UN initiative to help developing countries take action against climate change went, unnoticed, towards Japanese companies for the construction of three coal-fired power plants, the Associated Press reported Monday.

The slip-up highlights major gaps in oversight when it comes to funding climate projects in developing countries. The three power plant projects, built in Indonesia by Japanese companies, were listed as “climate finance.” But the U.N. has no formal definition of what constitutes legitimate climate finance, nor does it have a watchdog agency to ensure climate dollars end up in appropriate places.

Japan allocated the funding to Japanese companies under U.N. loans described as “thermal power plants,” with no indication that they were coal-fired projects.

The funding came from a pot of money established by the U.N. in 2009, when wealthy nations pledged to accumulate $30 billion in climate finance over the following three years. At the time, Japan agreed to provide about half that sum. Meanwhile, the recently-established Green Climate Fund, which has similar goals to help poorer nations adapt to the warming climate, also has no watchdog agency or formal definition of climate finance, according to the AP. President Obama recently pledged $3 billion to the fund.

Read the rest here.