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
We have had great victories this year. But there is still so much more to do in order to stop fossil fuel extraction and fight for climate justice and a just transition and to stop further warming. Indeed, the warning signs continue to come. This week, scientists presented alarming news from Antarctica ...
President Biden has continued to approve fossil fuel expansion in recent months, while pointing to Congress to excuse the United States’ lack of climate ambition and espousing false solutions like carbon capture and “net zero” plans that perpetuate fossil fuel destruction and environmental racism.
La Banque Postale, which is a relatively small but progressive bank in France, has set an international precedent against oil and gas expansion. The bank, which was already committed to ensuring that its banking activities achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040, announced a complete withdrawal from fossil fuels by the 2030. Will other banks now follow?
As hundreds are arrested outside the White House demanding urgent action on our climate emergency, the World Health Organization has described climate change as the "single biggest health threat facing humanity," and called on governments and policymakers to "act with urgency" on the climate and health crises.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
Risk guarantees and credit enhancement programs that subsidize coal-fired power plants could cost the Government of Indonesia and Indonesian ratepayers as much as tens of trillions of rupiah – many billions of U.S. dollars – over the coming decade.
If the world is going to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change, international financial institutions—including the World Bank—must do their part. The World Bank has made commitments to fight against climate change but continues to finance fossil fuel exploration, production, and combustion—the primary drivers of climate change.
Hidden Costs: Pollution from Coal Power Financed by OECD Countries
November 2015
Oil Change International and WWF
DOWNLOAD REPORT
OECD countries support coal-fired power plants abroad by providing preferential financing through institutions called Export Credit Agencies (ECAs). These coal-fired power plants have significant costs, in the form damages to the health of local populations from air pollution, and the cost of climate-change causing emissions.
This report finds that support for coal-fired power plants from the ECAs of OECD countries is implicated in tens of billions of dollars in local health impacts and climate change pollution each year.
Coal-fired power plants financed by Korean ECAs - supported by the