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
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.
As churches, colleges and companies increasingly pull out from investing in oil and gas, under pressure from the climate movement, secretive hedge funds are betting on climate chaos, planning on making millions of dollars in the process.
Under pressure from civil society, eleven banks have now confirmed that they will no longer fund the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
The Glasgow Statement on public finance requires signatories to end new direct overseas support for fossil fuels by the end of 2022 and fully prioritize finance for a clean and just energy transition. But only a handful of signatories have begun to turn these pledges into action.
This briefing illustrates how G7 public finance flows remain severely misaligned with climate goals. G7 public finance for fossil fuels between 2018 and 2020 totalled over USD 100 billion, four times its support for renewable energy.
Russia’s war in Ukraine and fuel price spikes mean international public finance institutions must roll out rapid decarbonization and aid packages, not back track by locking in new fossil infrastructure.