By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Sustainable Energy for All will be UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's topic today when he speaks to the press along with World Bank president Jim Kim.
There will be another bank in the mix: Bank of America, implicated not only in the predatory lending meltdown of 2008 but also in funding mountain top removal coal mining.
Ban put Bank of America chairman Chad Halliday is charge of "operational oversight" of Sustainable Energy for All.
Ban put Bank of America chairman Chad Halliday is charge of "operational oversight" of Sustainable Energy for All.
Ban Ki-moon's response on including coal industry lobbyists, for example in the recent climate change talks in Warsaw, is that "We must work together so that everyone can be part of the solution. Of course we recognize the importance of coal and fossil fuels in many economies at this time."
But Bank of America's presence is part of a growing trends of commercialization at and of the United Nations. On November 26 for example, alongside singer Mohammed Assaf was his corporate promoter from Dubai-based MBC media group, permitted to use the UN press conference as an advertisement for MBC.
Inner City Press wrote about it, and others have picked it up, saying for example that the "corporate storyteller" of MBC "was there to essentially use Assaf's appearance at the UN as an advertisement for MBC, which is wrong."
But at the UN, the corporate infiltration continues.
Earlier this same week, a fine play about violence against women was sponsored by the Italian oil company ENI, which also openly advertises with and sponsors the pseudo press advocacy group Ban partners with.
One point is, these partnerships hurt the United Nations or what it is supposed to be.
The UN decided to cancel, preempted by Ban's and Kim's press encounter on SE4ALL, its normal noon briefing, at which questions for example about the Haitian refugees drowned off the Bahamas and bombings in Sudan could be asked. So Inner City Press will cover the Sustainable Energy for All event. Watch this site.
