World Bank Ends Its Ban on Funding Nuclear Power Projects
The world's largest and most influential development bank said on Wednesday it would lift its longstanding ban on funding nuclear power projects.
The decision by the board of the World Bank could have profound implications for the ability of developing countries to industrialize without burning planet-warming fuels such as coal and oil.
The ban has been formally in place since 2013, but the last time the bank funded a nuclear power project was 1959 in Italy. In the decades since, a few of the bank's major funders, particularly Germany, have opposed its involvement in nuclear energy, on the grounds that the risk of catastrophic accidents in poor countries with less expertise in nuclear technology was unacceptably high.
The bank's policy shift, described in an email to employees late on Wednesday, comes as nuclear power is experiencing a global surge in support.
Casting nuclear power as an essential replacement for fossil fuels, more than 20 countries — including the United States, Canada, France and Ghana — signed a pledge to triple nuclear power by 2050 at the United Nations' flagship climate conference two years ago.
The Trump administration, while far less concerned about climate change than it is with competing against the Russian and Chinese nuclear industries, is trying to expand the fleet of American reactors and quadruple their contribution to the country's electric grids. Cabinet officials have emphasized support for a new generation of smaller reactors that offer the promise of faster deployment but have yet to be proven.
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