Let Them Eat Solar Panels (And Efficiency)

 In 2013, the World Bank declared it would stop funding coal projects and would only “in rare circumstances” provide financial support for new coal plants. It also said it would “scale up efforts to improve energy efficiency and increase renewable energy.” Rather than support coal projects, the bank said it would “scale up its work helping countries develop national and regional markets for natural gas, the fossil fuel with the lowest carbon intensity.” But two years later, the bank backtracked on natural gas and said it would stop all lending for oil and gas projects “except under exceptional circumstances.”

Since then, the bank, which claims its “role is to reduce poverty by lending money to the governments of its poorer members to improve their economies and to improve the standard of living of their people,” has lost its collective mind.

Rather than lending money to poor countries so they can develop more coal, oil, and natural gas projects — and, in doing so, grow their economies and improve living standards — the bank, which gets the biggest chunk of its funding from the United States, has become one of the world’s biggest carbon colonialists. As Todd Moss explained here on Substack last fall, the World Bank and other international lenders are trying to impose decarbonization policies on some of the world’s poorest countries, a tactic Moss rightly calls “obscene.”

Exhibit A in the World Bank’s parade of obscenities is its decarbonization plan for Guinea-Bissau, which the bank itself says is “one of the world’s poorest and most fragile countries.”

Let’s take a look.

 

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On December 19, the World Bank posted a note on Twitter about its report on Guinea-Bissau, a tiny country with only 2.2 million people on the west coast of Africa.

The bank touted its new “country and climate development report” for Guinea-Bissau, which it says is aiming “to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.” In the posting on Twitter, the agency explained, “With only 31% of the population having electricity, Guinea-Bissau faces challenges in achieving universal access. Yet, huge potential is ahead!” (Note the exclamation point!)

 

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Telling a poverty-stricken country like Guinea-Bissau to cut its CO₂ emissions is akin to pushing diet pills during a famine. Or maybe it’s like selling lawn sprinklers during a flood. Whatever the analogy, the entire notion is Total Bonkers Crazytown^TM.

Why should you care about a country whose main export is cashew nuts? Why care about a place where the poverty rate is over 70%? Why care about a country so small that few people could find it on a map?

Maybe you don’t need to care about Guinea-Bissau, but you should care about US funding for the World Bank, an agency that has been hijacked by climate catastrophists. Last November, President Joe Biden announced that the US would contribute $4 billion to the World Bank's International Development Association fund over three years. As Reuters explained, Biden’s pledge was “a record and substantially exceeds the $3.5 billion” the US pledged in 2021.

Before the US gives any more money to the World Bank, it should examine its lending policies and, in particular, its decarbonization plan for Guinea-Bissau.

 

That report is something to behold. It’s a 78-page demonstration of everything wrong with how elite technocrats think about poverty in developing countries. The report repeats the same message nearly two dozen times: Guinea-Bissau should be using more solar. Or rather, it should be “Accelerating the deployment of solar PV with storage.”

The report notes that Guinea-Bissau’s “offshore territories harbor oil reserves.” Nevertheless, it declares that the country “needs an integrated energy policy that includes a mandate to phase out heavy fuel oil-based generation and sets clear targets and timelines for renewable energy development and energy efficiency.”

Right. The technocrats at the World Bank want the country’s residents to use solar and batteries, and they should be using less energy, not more.

The technocrats want this in a place where 7 out of 10 people don’t even have electricity. They want this in a place where the per-capita GDP is less than $1,000! They want this in a place where, according to the bank, “Wood, charcoal, and agricultural biomass make up about 90% of primary energy consumption.” They want this in a country where the unemployment rate is nearly 26% and the country’s GDP is about $2.1 billion.

For comparison, consider this: the World Bank’s administrative budget is $3.5 billion! Thus, the World Bank, which employs 10,000 people, spends about 50% more every year on salaries, office space, and Cheez-Its than all of the money generated by all of the people of Guinea-Bissau. And yet — and yet — the World Bank is so opposed to hydrocarbons that it thinks Guinea-Bissau should rely on the two-legged stool of renewables and efficiency.

 

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The Guinea-Bissau decarbonization plan is just one of numerous reports the World Bank has produced over the past few years offering the same alt-energy prescription. Here’s one published in 2023 for Côte d'Ivoire, another impoverished African country. In his Substack piece from last October, titled “Ridiculous decarbonization,” Todd Moss wrote about how cabinet ministers from yet another impoverished country, São Tomé & Príncipe, were presenting their decarbonization plans to officials from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He said the meeting embodied “everything wrong about climate policy toward the poorest countries.” He continued, saying, “Extremely poor, low-emitting countries like São Tomé & Príncipe do not need decarbonization plans. They need growth plans.”

Moss is right.

So, too, is Vijaya Ramachandran of the Breakthrough Institute, who, in 2021, declared that “Pursuing climate ambitions on the backs of the poorest people in the world is not just hypocritical — it is immoral, unjust, and green colonialism at its worst." (Ramachandran was on the Power Hungry Podcast in 2022.)

Now that DOGE and the Trump administration are scrutinizing all federal spending, they should examine the money the US gives to the World Bank and other lenders. The United States should not give money to international entities that oppose the use of hydrocarbons. Instead, it should promote a global agenda that embraces energy realism and energy humanism.

Modern economies aren’t built with solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. They are built with hydrocarbons. It’s time for the World Bank to accept that hydrocarbons are essential for economic growth and human development. It should return to its mission of reducing poverty and improving living standards. And if the World Bank refuses to embrace a pro-energy, pro-human stance, the US shouldn’t fund it.

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Note: I’m using many of the details in this article and these slides in my keynote presentation today on energy humanism at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London. I believe the video of my presentation will also be available soon on the ARC website.