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
A new report, published today by UNEP and other environmental groups, outlines the “Production Gap”, the discrepancy between countries’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.
You cannot be a climate leader and bankroll LNG expansion at the same time. And land defenders and climate organizers are getting ready to force an end to LNG if you don't do it yourself.
The political system is broken. There may be tens of millions people demanding a just transition, but we live in a system of embedded cronyism, that rewards people closest to those in power.
The burning, melting, warming Arctic is clearly a sign that something is wrong and we need to stop investing in fossil fuels now.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
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.
This briefing explains why financial flows to fossil fuels matter and how to use the data provided by the Public Finance for Energy Database to help secure a just energy transition.