African Development Bank decides not to fund Kenya coal project

From Reuters

Sustainable Business

November 13, 2019 / 6:00 AM / Updated 15 hours ago

Alexander Winning

  • JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The African Development Bank (AfDB) will not fund a coal-fired power plant project in Kenya and has no plans to finance new coal plants in future, senior AfDB officials told Reuters.

    FILE PHOTO: African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina speaks to press after a meeting of the board in Abidjan, Ivory Coast October 31, 2019. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon/File Photo

    The Abidjan-based lender published an environmental and social impact assessment in May for the Lamu project, which was planned near a UNESCO World Heritage Site but which was halted by a local environmental tribunal.

    The project to build a 1,050 megawatt plant in eastern Kenya was backed by Kenyan and Chinese investors. Construction was originally planned to start in 2015.

    Dozens of top banks, insurers and development finance institutions are restricting coal investments, as climate activists and investors voice growing concerns about the impact of burning fossil fuels, particularly coal.

    AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina told Reuters at a conference in South Africa the bank took environmental concerns seriously and was focusing on renewable energy, adding that coal projects risked becoming “stranded assets” on the AfDB’s balance sheet.

  • Full article here.

    HT/Willie Soon

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    John Q Public
    November 15, 2019 8:42 am

    Donald Trump says “Thank You”. Coal can be sourced from the USA.

    Reply to  John Q Public
    November 16, 2019 10:27 am

    Donald Trump says “Thank You”. Coal can be sourced from the USA.

    How do you expect the U.S. coal to get to Kenya, on the east coast of Africa?

    November 15, 2019 8:49 am

    China will fund the project… for a price.

    November 15, 2019 8:57 am

    So the AFDB is towing Bank-of-England’s Mark Carney Green Finance Initiative line, in jolly colonial mode.

    And look at EU Commissioner (elect?) Ursula van der Leyen’s plans for the largest investment bank in the world, the EIB. Strictly green investments, no fossil fuel-linked projects anywhere. And not to forget the FED confab declaration of “regime change” in global banking. These “investments”, direct and out of any elected governments involvement, strictly green, even going as far as planning a synthetic blockchain for it all.
    China has jumped on this blockchain idea, likely as a response to Carney’s plans, but the Belt and Road Initiative is focused on physical economics, real projects.
    This stuff cannot be blamed on poor Greta, and is on full overdrive now as the central bankers system careens towards a blowout to make Lehman look like a tea-party.

    KcTaz
    November 15, 2019 12:16 pm

    This makes one wonder if China bribed some folks at the AFDB to get this outcome?

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  KcTaz
    November 16, 2019 1:30 am

    Heard the phrase smoke and mirrors and Chinese handshakes?

    William Astley
    November 15, 2019 12:54 pm

    Africa needs cost effective 24/7 electricity.

    Green energy is intermittent expensive energy. There is no magic wand that can change expensive intermittent energy into cheap 24/7 energy.

    Germany has proven green energy is an expensive scam. There is a point where installing additional intermittent sources just increases the amount of energy that is wasted as there is no load and no power storage scheme that works for months.

    Germany has reached the limit of the intermittent sun and wind power schemes which explains why the Germans have cut subsidies for wind turbine installations.

    https://notrickszone.com/#sthash.BlxTY2Yc.dpbs

    Stricter regulations for wind parks, greater setback distances
    Not only have the subsidies for German wind parks been cut back, but also setback rules will become more strict in order to protect homes and residents from landscape blight and infrasound. In the future, wind parks will need to keep a greater distance away from residential areas. The current CDU/CSU/SPD government wants to keep at least one kilometer between wind power installations and residential areas in the future. This will make many proposed projects impossible.

    3000 job cuts in the works
    FOCUS reports: “The crisis in the German wind energy industry is worsening. According to the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’, hard cuts at the largest German manufacturer Enercon will cost 3000 jobs.”

    Next year Enercon will also cut contracts with suppliers, sending a wave of job losses across the industry. “If supply contracts are terminated as planned, many of these companies are threatened with extinction,” FOCUS reports.

    Here is a picture that shows the 1001 German citizen initiatives to stop wind turbine installations throughout Germany.

    https://www.windwahn.com/karte-der-buergerinitiativen/

    November 15, 2019 1:41 pm

    When AID’s took off in Africa many people thought that it would solve
    the overpopulation problem. That never happened, so today its CC. So to
    “”Save the Planet,”” we must deny the people in Africa the use of
    electricity.

    So where is the money really coming from ? I would suspect the USA based
    World Bank.

    As one writer says, The Chinese will come forward with the money.

    MJE VK5ELL

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  Michael
    November 15, 2019 7:49 pm

    Not really. AIDS was already in Africa and for a long time (Along with all manner of things that would make you skin crawl like the Guinea worm *SHUDDER*). It’s when it “took off” in America and Europe with the potential to become a problem on a pandemic scale people in the medical world started to pay attention.

    Once again, predictions of death and doom on a global scale failed.

    Robert of Ottawa
    November 15, 2019 4:52 pm

    I saw an ineresting docmentary a fews years ago where a doctor in some African country was complaining about the solar power and how come only Africans cannot have cheap reliable electricity.

    Robert of Ottawa
    November 15, 2019 4:57 pm

    The FArican Development Bank – where Western money goes to Switzerland. It doesn’t look like the President of the ADB had a night without electricity, had to cook breakfast on a smoke inducing wood BBQ in a small thatch hut and defecate in the woods.

    observa
    November 16, 2019 1:45 am

    Blame slavery, thalidomide, asbestos, DDT, tobacco and them Christians-
    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/comment-thats-the-bloody-disgrace-australia-is-burning-but-nsw-is-cuddling-up-to-coal/ar-BBWOrB9
    Coal is the devil’s work and if you can’t see that you’re not a scientist.

    Fiona
    November 16, 2019 9:19 am

    Keep ’em poor.

    Johann Wundersamer
    November 24, 2019 4:17 pm

    Since “Biafra children starving” in the 60s the Western world is paying for Africa’s poor. To what success.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=Biafra+children+starving+in+the+60s&oq=Biafra+children+starving+in+the+60s&aqs=chrome.

    The success: Africa’s poor can afford to pay smugglers – “Many migrants save money for years to pay smugglers who arrange their routes to Europe. Image by Wairimu”

    https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/kenyans-brave-dangerous-journeys-hopes-slipping-europe

    https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNQD6urpfpHanpd1ED4koEOE0SQm6Q%3A1574639798789&ei=thjbXY_RL8-XmwX895-gDA&q=Kenya+poverty+migration+Europe&oq=Kenya+poverty+migration+Europe&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.