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The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a massive, publicly funded
experiment in greening the world economy. Based inside the World Bank,
this barely known institution is providing billions of dollars for action
under UN Conventions on climate change and biodiversity, also
international waters, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants and
ozone. Advocates describe an open and inclusive
‘work in progress’ showing
real results on the ground—but others see this complex new aid mechanism
as ‘greenwash’ for global business as
usual, a ‘sweetener’ for World Bank
loans, even ‘an enormous con’. This is the first book to explore the GEF
in political detail, using documents, interviews and observation to shine
light on practices of conservation and colonialism, capitalism and
complexity, compromise and co-option, culture and commodification.
Zoe Young explains how the GEF was formed in 1990 by Western governments
keen to deflect environmentalist attention from World Bank policies, and
to control—through funding—the UN treaties on global resource use. She
examines how an innovation ostensibly supposed to promote institutional
reform and co-operation for conservation has helped to enclose nature and
open up Southern nature and markets to
’global‘ experts and investors. She
also gives a disturbing account of some issues of science and public
accountability that require more attention before the
world's environment
could be managed more fairly—and sustainably.
Format notification: This title is simultaneously available
in paperback and hardback
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