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
With the climate crisis advancing at an ever-quickening pace, an immediate step toward the solution should be to stop funding fossils. This bill helps to do just that.
“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”
We’re hopeful that the Minister Morneau and the Trudeau government will live up to their promises, listen to the many Canadians demanding action, and stop funding fossils.
The question at COP21 in Paris this week boils down to this: Will Ministers make liars of their Heads of State? We'll know in just a few short days.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
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.
This joint position launched by 175 civil society organisations from 45 countries calls on world leaders to end OECD export finance for oil and gas, and explains how it can be done.
New Briefing: Despite pledging to stop international financing for fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022, the Italian Government is continuing to actively consider financing for major international fossil fuel projects that could emit greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to at least 3.5 times Italy’s annual emissions.