03.01.05 Community Development Carbon Fund Gets Unexpected Boost; Public & Private Partners Invest $128 Million
03.01.05 The Host Country Committee Meeting, Washington DC February 15-16, 2005
02.25.05 TERI, IETA and World Bank host GHG Forum in India Feb 1-2, 2005
02.22.05 Book Launch: Legal Aspects of Implementing the Kyoto Protocol Mechanisms - Making Kyoto Work
02.22.05 Carbon Expo Press Release
02.16.05 Kyoto Protocol Enters into Force
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“For a challenge as daunting as climate change, it is critical that action be taken at every level. We at the World Bank have joined the ranks
of those individuals and organizations who are showing leadership through
voluntary action to reduce their carbon footprint.”
Kristalina Georgieva, Director,
Environment Department, The World Bank
Reducing Our Carbon Footprint
The World Bank is seeking to reduce its own
carbon footprint. In a first move to deal with its
carbon emissions—estimated at 203,700 tons CO2
across the Bank and its field offices—the World
Bank’s Environmentally and Socially Sustainable
Development (ESSD) vice presidency committed
US$30,000, to offset its carbon emissions for 2001.
The money purchased carbon emission reductions
from the Scolel Té project in Chiapas, Mexico,
where small farmers in the poorest regions are
paid for increasing tree cover and soil carbon,
generating alternative sources of income as they
sequester carbon.
A Corporate Commitment
The Bank took another major step forward in May
2003, by announcing the new Washington staff
“Travel to Work” program to shrink
Bank staff’s carbon footprint. The
program will offset the “Travel to
Work” carbon emissions of some 6000
Washington-based staff through an
annual payment to the World Bank
Staff Climate Protection Program;
encourage the use of public transit
through a monthly incentive; and
align parking rates closer to current
commercial rates.
Count Me In!
World Bank staff have also responded to the
climate change threat at an individual level.
In April 2002, during ESSD Week/Sustainable
Development Month at the World Bank,
more than 554 Bank staff measured their
personal carbon footprint, through a
computer test created to determine their
“lifestyle” CO2 emissions. This included
everything from the carbon dioxide that
comes out of the tailpipe of their car to their
personal air travel over the course of the
year. In its first phase, more than 250
people registered for the voluntary program,
pledging to reduce their carbon
footprint to a sustainable level by reducing
their own carbon output and by paying to
offset their remaining surplus emissions.
