PUBLIC FINANCE
Governments are still spending billions subsidizing oil, gas and coal. We need to #StopFundingFossils and start investing in the future.
OVERVIEW OF WORK
Since the Paris Agreement, G20 governments have continued to finance more than USD 77 billion dollars annually in fossil fuels through multilateral development banks (MDBs), bilateral development finance institutions (DFIs), and export credit agencies (ECAs). This is three times the support they provide to clean energy. Beyond providing this direct monetary backing, these institutions reduce perceived risk and provide a government stamp of approval on fossil fuel projects that often serves to crowd in private finance. While recently the level of fossil fuel support has started to drop, institutional policies to exclude fossil fuel finance are needed to ensure this progress continues.
While a number of public finance institutions committed to ending coal finance in the early 2010s, it wasn’t until 2017, following years of campaign pressure by Oil Change and others, that the World Bank made a meaningful commitment to stop financing for upstream oil and gas. Following an intense campaign effort, in 2019 the European Investment Bank committed to ending nearly all oil, gas and coal finance. Recently, the UK announced it would end overseas oil and gas finance, and the EU and US, among others, have signalled that they intend to follow suit. Building off these successes, OCI is now working to secure further commitments from governments and public finance institutions on ending public finance for fossil fuels.
LATEST PROGRAM POSTS
Civil Society calls on COP leaders to include unequivical fossil fuel phase-out in final declaration
We are in the business end of the COP27 negotiations, as delegates haggle over the final declaration. As I write the news from Sharm el-Sheikh regarding the all important text is deeply concerning and comprehensively flawed.
At COP27, with just a month to go until the deadline, attendees called on countries to keep their Glasgow Statement pledge to stop public finance for fossil fuels.
At a series of events today at the COP27 climate talks, speaker after speaker warned against the Dash for Gas in Africa. One speaker, Mohamed Adow, from PowerShiftAfrica, said: “Africa sits at a crossroads & there is a fight to decide its energy & development future playing out at #COP27. A cabal of fossil fuel companies supported by foreign nations are trying to push Africa into a fossil fuel led development future. We say to them Don’t Gas Africa.”
It’s easy to lose touch with reality at the annual UN climate negotiations, also known as COP. The buzz and energy of tens of thousands of people at the UN’s annual conference focused on one of humanity’s greatest crises is overwhelming. And energizing.
Until you realize that you don’t all share the same intent.
Take Japan, for instance. Its sparkling white pavilion at COP is emblazoned with the slogan “Solutions to the Future.” With their technology prowess, it’s tempting to believe the rhetoric that they have the technologies to solve the climate crisis.
But then you shake off the buzz and
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.
New research shows that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries supported fossil fuel exports by an average of USD 41 billion from 2018-2020, almost five times more than clean energy exports ($8.5 billion).