Climate Change / Press Releases

First investigation by African Development Bank panel finds dam studies minimized climate change risks, impacts to Lake Victoria, resettlement costs, affordability concerns

Large dams may be one of the single most important contributors to global warming, releasing 104 million metric tonnes of methane each year. This estimate was recently published in a peer-reviewed journal by Ivan Lima and colleagues from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

A bitter debate has broken out in the scientific community over hydropower’s contribution to global warming. A leading Brazil-based climate scientist calculates that startlingly high levels of greenhouse gases are emitted when water is released from the turbines and spillways of tropical dams. But hydro industry-backed researchers have fiercely attacked his work. In an effort to settle the debate, International Rivers is releasing a report, just prior to the UN Climate Change conference in Nairobi (Nov. 6-25), calling on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to determine hydropower’s culpability in global warming.

International Rivers Network, Container Recycling Institute press release

CONTACT: Jenny Gitlitz, CRI Research Dir., Dalton, MA (413) 684.4746
Pat Franklin, CRI Executive Dir., Washington, DC (703) 276.9800
Glenn Switkes, IRN Latin America Dir., São Paulo, Brazil 011.55.11.3822.4157
Peter Bosshard, IRN Policy Dir., Berkeley, CA (510) 848.1155

The World Bank is failing to live up to its clean energy mandate, agreed at the 2005 G8 Summit, figures in a new report from the bank reveal. The revelation comes as the World Bank is taking an increasingly high profile and controversial role at the UN climate talks currently underway in Montreal. The Bank hopes to control several global funds and initiatives supposed to help solve the climate crisis.