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
The Netherlands just contradicted its COP26 pledge to end public finance for fossil fuels by the end of 2022 and shift this money to clean energy by issuing a commitment to insure the Brazil Santos Basin Pre-Salt Pole oil and gas production project for around USD 321 million.
Promise Breakers, a report released today by Oil Change International, reveals that the stop funding fossils commitment forged at COP26, is already shifting an estimated USD 5.7 billion per year out of fossil fuels and into clean energy, with the potential of a further 13.7 billion per year if all signatories fulfill their commitments.
New research shows stop funding fossils commitment forged at the 2021 UN climate summit is already shifting an estimated USD 5.7 billion per year out of fossil fuels and into clean energy. If all signatories fulfill their commitments, then a further 13.7 billion per year will be shifted out of fossil fuels and into clean energy.
175+ organizations call on the OECD to end oil and gas finance. As a first step towards this objective, an OECD member must table a proposal to prohibit oil and gas support at next week’s OECD meeting.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
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
Public support for fossil fuel exploration in rich countries is nearly triple the amount pledged to the Green Climate Fund.