2 October 2008: The World Bank has announced an 87% increase in funding for renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) projects and programmes in developing countries in the past fiscal year.

Jamal Saghir, World Bank Director for Energy, Transport and Water, highlighted that “concerns about energy security, climate change, and increasing energy prices make many renewable energy and energy efficiency measures and applications very attractive in a number of different settings.” Total RE and EE commitments up to 30 June 2008 reached nearly US$2.7 billion. The commitments by the World Bank Group, including Carbon Finance operations and co-financing support from the Global Environment Facility, were broken up as follows: US$1.192 billion for EE; US$476 million for New-RE including wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and hydropower projects that will produce up to 10 MW per facility; and US$1.007 billion for hydropower projects with capacities of over 10 MW per facility. [World Bank Press Release]