Counter Balance

Brussels — The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced today an energy policy that while introducing stringent criteria for financing coal power plants does not eliminate the possibility of support for coal or other fossil fuel energy sources. The bank’s new energy policy will introduce Emission Performance Standards for all fossil fuel generation projects to screen […]

What is the reason behind the European Investment Bank’s 500 million loan to the Brazilian development bank BNDES? The public money comes from the ‘climate funds’ intended for projects to stop climate change. Does this make BNDES the most logical choice? Anouk Franck of our Dutch partners organisation Both Ends went to Brazil to find […]

For a campaigner against the financing of large dams, Marseille was the place to be during the last World Water Forum. We found all our targets – dam builders, public financiers and private water companies – in the same place arguing the potential of big dams in providing cheap and green energy. 2 Problems here: […]

Earlier this month Counter Balance participated in the Alternative World Water Forum in Marseille. The alternative forum – better known under its French acronym FAME (Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau) – is a CSO led initiative to counterbalance the official World Water Forum which took place simultaneously but was dominated by the water industry. Water […]

Our French member organisation ‘Les Amis de la Terre’ has started a campaign against the financing of harmful large dams. Here is why: Large dams are presented by their advocates as “green” projects for the production of “renewable energy”. The reality, however, paints a different picture. Their construction creates enormous reservoirs of water that submerge […]

By Cléo Fatoorehchi for IPS MARSEILLE, France , Mar. 19, 2012 (IPS) – Numerous non-governmental organisations used the World Water Forum (WWF) held in Marseille last week as an opportunity to remind the international community about the serious global impacts of large dams all over the world. Defined as dams higher than 15 metres or […]

Call for Compliance with the World’s Highest Standards Inflatable dam at the stairs of St-Charles trainstation, Marseille Marseille – Activists created a living river and inflated a large dam in central Marseille today against the corporate greenwashing of dams at this week’s 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, France. The  colourful  manifestation  of  over  50  […]

The USD 1,3 billion Nam Theun 2 (NT2) hydropower project in central Laos displaced 6,200 indigenous peoples on the Nakai Plateau.  More than 110,000 people downstream, who depend on the Xe Bang Fai and Nam Theun rivers for their livelihoods, have been directly affected by the project, due to destruction of fisheries, flooding of riverbank […]

Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale * Counterbalance * Friends of Lake Turkana * International Rivers Joint press release International NGOs are calling for the halt of the destructive Gibe 3 Dam on Ethiopia’s Omo River. The dam threatens the land and livelihoods of 500,000 tribal people in Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya. By […]