Washington, April. 15 (PTI): Environment watchdog Greenpeace International has accused the World Bank of "hypocrisy" and challenged it to "to put their money where its mouth is" and stop funding projects that exacerbate climate change.

Greenpeace has argued that in spite of an acknowledgment from the World Bank's President, Paul Wolfowitz, that climate change is a serious issue, the bank continues to fund fossil fuel projects and fails to prevent forest destruction-- the very causes of the problem. The World Bank's current spending on fossil fuels continues to dwarf its comparatively miniscule investments in sustainable renewable energy-- a mere USD 153 million in 2006.

In its recently published report, "Energy Revolution", Greenpeace has shown that with proper investment equivalent to current fossil fuel subsidies of around USD 300 billion a year-- renewable energy along with energy efficiency would deliver the 50 per cent reduction of global emissions by 2050 needed to avert the potentially apocalyptic scenarios presented by the inter-governmental panel on climate change last week.

Greenpeace also launched a new report "Carving up the Congo" on the logging sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this week. The report calls for the Bank, the largest funder of the DRC Government, to urgently act to stop the expansion of the logging industry in the country, as logging is a key driver of deforestation, which causes climate change.