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Bankwatch blog

March 9, 2012
 | by Kuba Gogolewski

Poland's veto against increasing Europe's 2020 target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts to 25% is frustrating not only environmentalists in Poland and elsewhere.

EU Funds
Energy & climate
March 9, 2012
 | by Iryna Holovko

Ukraine plans to extend the lifetimes of its fifteen nuclear reactors, most of which will soon pass their expiration date. A new report shows how these plans that are pursued in utter silence have seen only an inadequate assessment.

EBRD
Energy & climate
March 8, 2012
 | by Kuba Gogolewski

Poland is on course to place further large roadblocks in the way of the European Commission's Roadmap 2050 towards a low-carbon economy unless certain demands being insisted on by Warsaw are met. These include the granting of free allowances for all 16 power plants that Poland has asked to be supported under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme.

EU Funds
Energy & climate
March 1, 2012
 | by Pippa Gallop

Recent Balkan hydro projects suggest the European Commission could make much better use of its shareholder role in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

EBRD
Other harmful projects
February 28, 2012
 | by Nicholas Hildyard, Larry Lohmann, Sarah Sexton

A new report by The Corner House critically examines the notion of “energy security,” one of the buzzwords in European politics used to justify controversial infrastructure projects like the Nabucco gas pipeline or high voltage transmission lines in Ukraine. Here an introduction to the report from its authors.

EBRD, EIB
Energy & climate, Social & economic impacts
February 23, 2012
 | by Vladlena Martsynkevych

Following the publication of one official and one shadow report on the Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyz authorities have responded to the calls of Bankwatch and other environmental groups to take a tougher stance on the Kumtor mining operations. The EBRD should follow their example.

EBRD
Social & economic impacts, Other harmful projects, Mining
February 8, 2012
 | by Genady Kondarev

A documentary exposes the practices and disastrous local impacts of oil extraction by European energy companies in Nigeria. Food for thought for ourselves and our political representatives at national and European level.

Energy & climate, Social & economic impacts
January 31, 2012
 | by Sven Haertig-Tokarz

Two new reports and two videos on the impacts of mining operations in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia unearth some of the downsides of the mining business in Central Asia.

EBRD
Social & economic impacts, Other harmful projects, Mining
January 27, 2012
 | by David Hoffman

Earlier this week we published an overview of two Central Asian mining projects financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development - the Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan and the Ukhaa Khudag coal mine in Mongolia's south Gobi desert, which is part of the much larger - in fact the world's largest - coal deposit at Tavan Tolgoi.

EBRD
Mining
January 25, 2012
 | by Vladlena Martsynkevych

A look at mining projects in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia reveal a need to carefully revise the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s involvement in the exploitation of natural resources.

EBRD
Social & economic impacts