After the hearing, he told reporters he's confident that new World Bank President
Robert Zoellick is the "right leader with the right focus" to make the Bank more environmentally aware. The technology fund would only help advance those efforts, he said.
"We think this is a critical way to help the bank become greener," said McCormick.
Lawmakers' consideration of the clean technology fund comes just as officials from around the world are meeting in Bonn, Germany, to try to create a climate change agreement to take effect after the Kyoto Protocal ends in 2012. The Bush administration has been criticized for refusing to sign Kyoto, which required signatories to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Still, McCormick said the clean technology fund, which the president touted in his January State of the Union address, will help advance international discussions on a post-Kyoto climate change pact.
"I believe that it will contribute to building the kind of trust between developed and developing countries that will be necessary if a new U.N. climate arrangement is to be reached," he said.
Meanwhile, environmental groups criticized the fund, describing it as a way to finance coal plants and other energy facilities that still emit pollutants. In fact, 121 groups on Wednesday issued a declaration opposing the fund.
"The Clean Technology Fund has no definition of clean technology," said Kenny Bruno, international program director for Oil Change International, in a statement earlier this week. "What they are really proposing is a 'slightly less dirty' technology fund, which will include financing of coal plants that are somewhat less polluting than the dirtiest plants out there."
Additionally, Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder, who also testified at the congressional hearing, argued that the World Bank is unqualified to manage climate funds because of its long-term practice of financing carbon emissions from oil and gas. Instead, he said, the funds should be administered under the auspices of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty to reduce global warming that's linked to the Kyoto Protocol.
-By Maya Jackson Randall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9255; maya.jackson- randall@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 06-05-08 1717 Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
