For immediate release
How International Investors Can Stop Rampal Power Project, the World’s Most Dangerous Coal Plant
Report Shines a Light on Hidden Backers of World’s Most Destructive Coal Project
October 12, 2017, New Delhi: Some of the biggest players in global finance are quietly backing the world’s most dangerous coal plant, according to an international investigative report released today. International investors are enabling and profiting from the proposed Rampal plant in southern Bangladesh despite persistent warnings that it will damage Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, intensify climate change, and imperil the lives of over two million people.
These previously hidden backers include the World Bank’s private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC); leading U.S. asset managers BlackRock and Vanguard; pension funds including the U.S. fund for teachers, TIAA; and Japanese commercial banks. The Asian Development Bank has proposed a $700 million loan to build transmission lines that will connect to the plant. All the organisations mentioned above have either social and environmental guidelines or have made public statements about sustainable investment. This should preclude them from enabling a project like Rampal.
The report “Time to Come Clean: How International Investors Can Stop the World’s Most Dangerous Coal Plant,” appeals these investors to use their leverage to halt the project. It urges the IFC, a substantial indirect backer of the project through its investments in Indian banks, to take the lead in coordinating a pushback among investors.
The report was published by U.S.-based Inclusive Development International, Bank Information Center Europe, and Delhi-based Center for Financial Accountability.
Rampal Power Project, officially known as Maitree Super Thermal Power Project, is being built just 14 kilometres from the Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage-designated mangrove forest. Over two million people in Bangladesh and India depend on the Sundarbans for food, water, and income. The forest also plays a critical role in the fight against climate change by sequestering large amounts of carbon and protecting low-lying Bangladesh from cyclones and floods.
UNESCO, former U.S. Vice President, Environmentalist and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, and a number of climate and energy scientists have all called for the construction of the plant to be cancelled. An Indian-Bangladeshi consortium is developing the project.
Find the report here: http://bit.ly/2i5ByQA
Photographs:
Construction of the Rampal Power Project: http://bit.ly/2yhph1z
Four-day-long march in March 2016 to protest the construction of the plant: http://bit.ly/2z1TwH0
For more information, please contact:
In Washington D.C.
David Pred
Co-founder and Managing Director
Inclusive Development International
david@inclusivedevelopment.net
In Delhi
Monalisa Barman
Research Assistant
Centre for Financial Accountability
monalisa@cenfa.org