ASIA
In Asia, we’re fighting the buildout of gas infrastructure and working towards an end to all finance for fossil fuels.
OVERVIEW OF WORK
One of the greatest threats to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement is the buildout of gas infrastructure in Asia. As campaigners move from successful campaigns to stop coal buildout, Oil Change is working with partners across the region and internationally to increase awareness that gas is dirty, expensive and undermines development.
We are working with the Fossil Free Japan coalition to stop Japanese public finance for overseas gas, coal and oil projects and are also working to push the Asian Development Bank to stop financing fossil fuels.
LATEST PROGRAM POSTS
With the health and livelihoods of billions at risk from COVID-19, governments around the world are preparing historic levels of stimulus finance. Building a Just Recovery that avoids the worst of climate change means overhauling our public finance institutions fast.
Next summer's Olympic Games are at risk due to heatwaves and there’s one story Japan likely doesn’t want out there: the fact that it’s currently one of the world’s biggest supporters of coal.
The message in today’s Asian Financial Times is simple: climate leaders don’t fund coal.
“Cigarettes are good for you.” The tobacco industry successfully peddled this myth for decades. Today, nobody would believe them, and the boldness of the lie seems staggering in retrospect. But Japan, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, seems determined to give the tobacco industry a run for its money with another big lie: their government continues to use public funds to push dirty coal plants that they call “efficient,” even as the world burns.
In recent years, Japan has become the world’s most desperate pusher of dirty coal technology. They have insisted that their dirty coal plants are “efficient”
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
Despite the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels, Japan is driving the expansion of liquified gas (LNG) and other fossil-based technologies like ammonia co-firing, worsening the climate crisis and harming communities and ecosystems.
*Updated February 2024* Oil Change International analysis shows that several major countries continue to pump $6.2 billion in public finance into international fossil fuel projects despite committing to end this support by the end of 2022.
This briefing, "Japan's Dirty Secret: World's top fossil fuel financier is fueling climate chaos and undermining energy security," reveals that Japan is the world’s largest public financier of fossil fuel projects, providing 10.6 billion USD per year between 2019 and 2021. Japan has been leading the drive to expand gas consumption in Asia and is the world’s leading financier of gas infrastructure globally, spending USD 6.7 billion on gas projects on average each year between 2019 and 2021.