Of course, South Africa shouldn’t be building a huge new coal-fired power plant, should it? Environmental groups are right to protest at World Bank funding for such a construction.
Nonetheless, we might raise our eyebrows at news that the US and UK governments might vote against the US$3.75 billion plant, on grounds that it won’t be clean. For both these governments continue permitting new coal projects in their own citizens’ back yards. The UK government is also lending uncritical backing to the parlous Phulbari coal mine-power plant project in Bangladesh – which, ironically, the Asia Development Bank has itself refused to fund.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9968.