Climate Justice, South Africa & the World Bank

Friday, April 9, 2010, 12 noon - 2:00 p.m. South Africa now has its 4th post-Apartheid president... But the country is more unequal than ever! It is also under consideration for a World Bank loan to “modernize” it ailing electrical power infrastructure. Revamping its grid would normally be a rare opportunity to set a new course, redress inequalities and implement a green strategy. But activist-intellectual Patrick Bond warns that the opposite seems likely with the Bank loan. It will strengthen the private sector and increase the gap between rich and poor: urban residents prepay their electricity at 4 times the discounted rate available to large corporations. Further, the proposed loan will finance the world's 4th largest coal-fired plant—just the opposite of what is required by our climate crisis—and raise rates on working people. (see attachment for civil society's reaction).

On April 8, 2010, the World Bank will make its decision. Patrick Bond will reflect on the outcome on Friday, April 9, 2010, from noon to 2:00 p.m. at encuentro 5 (in Boston's Chinatown, see below for more information).

Also invited to the conversation is Tufts University professor, William Moomaw who consulted with the World Bank and who is in support of the loan.

This Bank critic meets Bank supporter discussion makes for an exciting engagement of ideas.

• For Patrick Bond's biography, see the Center for Civil Society at the University of Kwazulu Natal. William Moomaw's biography can be found at Tufts University.

• Read "Circumventing the climate cul-de-sac: Charleston-Cochabamba-Caracas versus Kyoto-Copenhagen-Cancun" by Patrick Bond in Social Text.