World Bank Commits Funds to Environment

The World Bank, long criticized for funding environmentally damaging projects, today announced increased lending to population-control projects and forestry development to help combat global atmospheric warming.

Bank President Barber Conable told a conference on the environment that the bank “is committed to environmental issues and, what is more, this commitment does not detract at all from our primary mission of global development.”

The American president of the leading institution for funding Third World development spoke at the opening of a conference called to address how to raise living standards in poor countries while preserving the environment.

Sponsored by Japan

Sponsored by the Japanese government and the U.N. Environment Program, the conference has drawn dozens of officials and experts from many countries and international organizations.

At the end of the conference Wednesday they are expected to issue recommendations on ways to combat the main problem on the agenda: global warming. Scientists warn that the so-called greenhouse effect could scorch parts of the Earth and raise sea levels unless checked.

Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, whose country is under environmentalists’ attack as the biggest importer of tropical forest products, pledged increased assistance to research on sustainable development of tropical forests.

Kaifu, welcoming the conferees, said Japan intends to raise its foreign environmental aid to $2.25 billion in three years.

‘Positive Vigor’

“Japan is ready to take on global environmental issues with positive vigor,” he said, reporting that he discussed such issues in depth during his just-completed series of summit meetings in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Conable said the world’s population, currently about 5 billion, will grow to 6 billion by the year 2000, adding to the use of fossil fuels that is blamed for the greenhouse effect and atmospheric warming.

He announced that the bank is establishing a gas development unit to promote use of natural gas because it is the least polluting of fossil fuels.

“I am also pleased to announce a tripling of our lending to forestry in the next few years,” Conable said.

On population-control projects, he said lending has amounted to over $500 million in the last five years and that level will increase to more than $800 million in the 1990-92 period.