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For Immediate Release
May, 27 2022, 08:01am EDT
Contact:
Nicole Rodel: nicole [at] priceofoil.org
Laurie van der Burg: laurie [at] priceofoil.org
Response: G7 ministers pledge to end public finance for fossil fuels by the end of this year, prioritizing clean energy support instead
Today G7 climate, energy and environment ministers issued a communique committing to end public finance for fossil fuels by the end of this year. The statement echoes the joint commitment made by 39 countries and institutions at the November 2021 climate negotiations and states that G7 governments will "end new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022".
BERLIN
Today G7 climate, energy and environment ministers issued a communique committing to end public finance for fossil fuels by the end of this year. The statement echoes the joint commitment made by 39 countries and institutions at the November 2021 climate negotiations and states that G7 governments will "end new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022". The G7 make this commitment to advance national security interests and accelerate the international clean energy transition, which they recognize requires phasing out investment in the unabated fossil fuel sector.
In response, experts at Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth Japan issued the following statement:
Laurie van der Burg, Public Finance Campaign Co-Manager at Oil Change International said: "The G7 commiting to end public finance for fossil fuels and shift it to clean is a massive win. In the context of Russia's fossil-fueled war and signs that some of the G7 members who agreed to end their public fossil finance last November may backslide by pursuing new gas investments, this statement is a timely reconfirmation that the most viable pathway to energy security is prioritizing public finance for clean energy. These promises should now urgently be turned into action. Strong implementation is needed -- both for the G7 to shift their $33 billion a year in fossil fuel finance and for them to be able to encourage even more countries to join them."
Susanne Wong, Asia Program Manager at Oil Change International said: "Japan joining this G7 commitment is a significant step forward for people and our planet. Japan is the second largest provider of international public finance for fossil fuels and the only G7 member that did not sign a commitment to end public finance for fossil fuels at the COP26 climate talks last year. If Japan implements this commitment with integrity, it will directly shift $11 billion a year from fossil fuels to clean energy and have a much larger indirect impact given Japan's influence on other financiers in Asia and around the world. This requires that Japan stop financing the expansion of gas infrastructure across Asia and globally and stop promoting technologies that would extend the lifetime of dirty coal plants. If Japan follows through and truly shifts its fossil finance to clean energy, this will help to speed the just energy transition we so desperately need."
Ayumi Fukakusa, Climate and energy campaigner from Friends of the Earth Japan "Japan is the second largest provider of public finance to fossil fuels so this is a significant step. However, Japan has a bad track record of implementing its commitments. Last year, the G7 committed to end new direct government support for international coal power projects by the end of 2021, but Japan still intends to support two new coal projects in Indonesia and Bangladesh. Japan must implement its commitments with integrity to shift the actual flow of money. Also, Japan has not committed to a full coal phase-out domestically and is still constructing new coal power plants. Now Japan must accelerate the decarbonization of its electricity sector without relying on destructive energy such as nuclear as well as prioritizing energy saving and energy efficiency."
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Notes:
- The $33 billion per year quoted above is from a recent G7 factsheet from Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth U.S., Asian People's Movement on Debt and Development, Friends of the Earth Japan, and International Institute for Sustainable Development based on data from the open-access Public Finance for Energy Database (energyfinance.org), a project tracking financial flows to fossil fuels and clean energy from G20 bilateral development finance institutions (DFIs), export finance agencies (ECAs), and the multilateral development banks (MDBs). From 2018-2020, G7 governments spent over $100 billion on public finance for fossil fuels.
- The countries and the institutions that previously signed the joint Glasgow statement on public finance in November 2021 include: Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD), Albania, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Banco de Desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais (BDMG), The East African Development Bank (EADB), El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), France, Germany, Mali, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Moldova, Portugal, Slovenia, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, the European Investment Bank, The Gambia, The United Kingdom, the United States and Zambia.
- An April 2022 briefing from Oil Change International on recent trends in international public finance for fossil fuels, and how these financial flows could be used instead to unlock a globally just transition.
- Oil Change International data on energyfinance.org shows that most international public finance for energy has flowed between wealthy countries rather than supporting development in the Global South. Poor contract terms, debt traps, and disproportionate ownership by foreign multinationals have meant fossil finance has usually undermined, not supported development when it does flow to low-income countries.
- A legal opinion by Professor Jorge E Vinuales from the University of Cambridge and Barrister Kate Cook of Matrix Chambers argues that governments and public finance institutions that continue to finance fossil fuel infrastructure are potentially at risk of climate litigation.
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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57 Groups to Senate: Vote to Block Weapons for Israel
"Despite clear evidence showing that Israel is committing war crimes and blocking humanitarian aid, the U.S. is still unconscionably selling billions of dollars of offensive weapons to Israel," said one advocate.
Nov 11, 2024
Ahead of historic U.S. Senate votes on military aid for Israel that are expected next week, dozens of civil society groups on Monday launched a grassroots campaign aimed at pushing lawmakers to support blocking more than $20 billion in offensive weapons transfers.
Demand Progress, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Action Corps, and the Center for Constitutional Rights were among the groups that launched the No More Weapons for Israel's War campaign, asking the groups' millions of supporters across the U.S. to demand that their senators to support the joint resolutions of disapproval (JRD) that are scheduled for a vote this month.
The JRDs were introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in September. The resolutions could block transfers of certain U.S. weapons, such as joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), tanks, and artillery shells, which have been linked to civilian casualties in Gaza since Israel began its assault on the enclave more than 13 months ago.
"For the last 13 months, the Biden administration has refused to use the leverage at its disposal to end to the war in Gaza and alleviate an ever-increasing humanitarian catastrophe," said Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser for Demand Progress. "Despite clear evidence showing that Israel is committing war crimes and blocking humanitarian aid, the U.S. is still unconscionably selling billions of dollars of offensive weapons to Israel."
Kharrazian noted that passing the JRDs is "even more urgent now," following the election last week of President-elect Donald Trump, a "notorious ally" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sanders pointed out when he introduced the JRDs in September that the weapons that would be impacted by the vote have been shown by "a mountain of documentary evidence" to be killing and maiming civilians in Gaza.
Amnesty International submitted a report to the federal government earlier this year detailing several Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure including homes in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used U.S. weapons to kill large numbers of civilians.
An attack using JDAMs manufactured by Boeing killed 43 civilians, nearly half of whom were children, in October 2023. Four strikes used bombs and other weapons made in the U.S. and killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children.
A Guardian analysis last month also found that U.S. weapons were used by the IDF when it conducted an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 115.
The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that it is pushing Israel to limit civilian casualties, but has been condemned by human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers for continuing to provide offensive weapons despite mounting evidence that more civilians are being killed each day. Last week, the United Nations said it had found that 70% of people killed by the IDF in Gaza between November 2023 and April 2024 were women and children, despite persistent claims by the U.S. and Israel that it is targeting Hamas fighters.
"It's time for the Israeli government to take U.S. demands about de-escalation, civilian protection, and humanitarian aid seriously," said Tori Bateman, advocacy director for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "If the United States wants to see the Israeli government change its behavior, then it must change too by being willing to leverage arms sales to achieve a cease-fire, protect civilians, and serve the U.S. national interest. Senators should vote 'yes' to block these transfers of offensive weapons to Israel."
Progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have pointed out in recent months that $12.5 billion in U.S. military aid has continued flowing to Israel even as the Israeli government has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, resulting in the spread of disease and widespread hunger, with U.N. experts saying in July that the enclave was facing famine.
Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the U.S. from providing weapons to a country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.
"We are grateful Sen. Sanders has introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval and the historic vote to take place in November to block the sale of offensive arms to Israel," said Yasmine Taeb, legislative and political director for MPower Change Action Fund. "Sending any offensive arms to Israel is a violation of U.S. and international humanitarian law. We urge senators to co-sponsor and vote YES on the JRDs."
Hassan El-Yayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy for FCNL, called Israel's war in Gaza "not just a humanitarian catastrophe but a mass atrocity carried out with U.S. bombs and military support, funded by American taxpayers."
"It's long overdue for Congress to hold a public debate and vote on ending U.S. complicity in the mass killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians," said El-Yayyab. "These joint resolutions of disapproval mark a historic moment—the first major effort in Congress to block offensive arms sales to Israel in United States history. Senators must vote yes and press the Biden administration to use all forms of U.S. leverage to finally end the war in Gaza, bring hostages home, and de-escalate tensions across the Middle East."
In a separate statement on Monday, Chip Gibbons of the civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent noted that "war crimes" committed by Israel include "the deliberate assassination of Palestinian journalists, making our government complicit in the worst attack on free expression rights anywhere in the world today."
"As a domestic civil liberties group, we don't take stances on international issues," said Gibbons, the group's policy director. "But when our government provides weapons that are used to violate human rights, that implicates our core mission."
The group's executive director, Sue Udry, applauded Sanders for introducing the JRDs and urged every member of Congress to support them.
"It's well past time to hold our government accountable to our own laws," said Udry.
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20+ Children Among Scores Killed by IDF Strikes in Gaza and Lebanon
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump "see eye to eye" on the Iranian "threat."
Nov 11, 2024
Israeli airstrikes killed scores of Palestinians and Lebanese—including dozens of women and children—over the weekend as right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he and Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump "see eye to eye" on perceived threats posed by Iran.
A Sunday morning Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike on the home of the Alloush family in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed at least 33 Palestinians including at least 13 children and nine women, according to health and civil defense officials in the embattled coastal enclave.
Some sources said more than 40 people were killed in the attack. According to Gaza officials, more than 50 people—many of them forcibly displaced by Israel's 13-month onslaught—were sheltering in the Alloush home when it was bombed.
Witnesses to the strike's aftermath described a horrific scene of dozens of victims blown to bits.
"There was a very huge explosion," relative Abdullah al-Najjar toldAgence France-Presse. "When we arrived here, all the bodies were torn apart."
The IDF claimed the strike targeted unspecified "terrorist infrastructure" that "posed a threat" to its troops, and that "numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians."
Israeli forces have killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians during a monthlong operation in northern Gaza aimed at creating what one IDF general leading the campaign called a "cleansed space" from which residents have been forcibly expelled, possibly permanently.
IDF troops have destroyed much of the Jabalia camp and cut its residents off from humanitarian aid. As the IDF forces people to flee from Jabalia, its drones and snipers have targeted Palestinian civilians without regard for age or gender. Survivors have reported Israeli soldiers shooting people holding white flags, first responders, and journalists trying to document what many experts say is a genocide backed by U.S. military aid and diplomatic support.
Another Sunday morning IDF strike that targeted the al-Khour family home in Sabra, south of Gaza City, killed numerous Palestinians including Wael al-Khour, the director of the Palestinian Authority's Welfare Ministry in Gaza, his wife, three of their children, and three grandchildren, according toReuters.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 23 people including seven children were killed in a Sunday IDF airstrike on the village of Almat north of the capital Beirut.
"Under the rubble, there are only children, elderly men and women," said Raed Berro, a lawmaker from the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah who represents the district in the Lebanese Parliament.
Lebanese officials also said that more than a dozen paramedics and civil defense volunteers were killed by IDF strikes in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon on Saturday.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 3,186 people have been killed and over 14,000 others wounded by Israeli attacks on the country since October 2023. That's when Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in solidarity with Gaza after the Hamas-led attack and kidnappings prompted Israel's retaliatory assault that has left more than 156,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing.
The latest IDF strikes came amid a looming deadline this week imposed last month by the Biden administration for Israel to take "urgent and sustained" action to improve the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, where United Nations officials last week warned of imminent famine.
However, with the end of the Biden administration fast approaching, Netanyahu said Sunday that he has spoken three times with Trump and that he and the U.S. president-elect "see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in all its components," including Hamas and Hezbollah, which are backed by Tehran.
On Monday, Trump confirmed that he has tapped Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, last week called Stefanik a "strident genocide supporter," as she has advocated sending Israel as many U.S. weapons as it needs, without conditions, to ensure "total victory" in Gaza.
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As Biden Adviser Speaks at COP29, Green Groups Say Act Before Trump Takeover
"President Joe Biden must reject all pending LNG export permits and stop the expansion of fossil fuels."
Nov 11, 2024
As the U.S. senior adviser to the president for international climate policy addressed the United Nations summit in Azerbaijan on Monday, green groups urged the outgoing Democratic administration to do whatever it can to tackle the global crisis before Republicans seize control of the White House and likely both chambers of Congress.
"I want to address tonight a topic that is on everyone's mind—the U.S. election," John Podesta, President Joe Biden's adviser, told the crowd in Baku on the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), less than a week after President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.
Although votes are still being counted, Republicans have secured a majority in the U.S. Senate and are on track to retain control of the House of Representatives—paving the way for Trump's plans to roll back the Biden-Harris administration's progress on the climate emergency and "drill, baby, drill," which would lead to a surge in planet-heating pollution.
"Podesta's speech must be followed by swift action to limit U.S. fossil fuel expansion and achieve a strong COP29 outcome."
"For those of us dedicated to climate action, last week's outcome in the United States is obviously bitterly disappointing," Podesta acknowledged, "particularly because of the unprecedented resources and ambition President Biden and Vice President Harris brought to the climate fight."
Noting that Biden pledged to halve emissions this decade, rejoined the Paris agreement, signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and promised $11 billion in international climate funds, Podesta warned that "the next administration will try to take a U-turn and reverse much of this progress."
"As President Biden said in the Rose Garden last week, setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science," he continued. "This fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle, in one country. This fight is bigger still."
"We can and will make real progress on the backs of our climate-committed states and cities, our innovators, our companies, and our citizens, especially young people, who understand more than most that climate change poses an existential threat that we cannot afford to ignore," he added. "Failure or apathy is simply not an option."
Responding to the envoy's remarks in a Monday statement, Collin Rees, United States program manager at Oil Change International, said that "if John Podesta and President Joe Biden are committed to doing everything possible to continue climate progress despite Donald Trump's reelection, this moment demands a bold agenda that goes beyond locking in clean energy gains and takes real action toward a just transition off fossil fuels."
"There is no shortage of critical work to be done before Biden leaves office," Rees argued. "Here at COP29, the United States must support a new, transformative global finance goal in which rich countries pay their fair share in high-quality, grant-based finance and work to submit a Paris-aligned nationally determined contribution committing to do its fair share of climate action and phase out fossil fuels."
In the United States, Rees argued, Biden must "finalize studies on the dangerous impacts" of new liquefied natural gas exports, "reject deadly projects like the Dakota Access oil pipeline and pending LNG facilities in the Gulf South," and urge Congress to block the latest attempt by outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) "to destroy bedrock environmental protections."
Looking toward next week's Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting, Rees said that "Biden's administration must support a global agreement to end export credit finance for oil and gas projects, a process which could end tens of billions of dollars in international finance for fossil fuels every year. This agreement would limit the global climate damages Trump and his fossil fuel cronies are able to perpetrate."
"Podesta's speech must be followed by swift action to limit U.S. fossil fuel expansion and achieve a strong COP29 outcome," he stressed. Leaders at other climate organizations—who have often argued that Biden hasn't gone far enough to tackle the fossil fuel-driven crisis—issued similar demands on Monday.
Emphasizing that "climate diplomacy on a boiling planet doesn't stop for a climate denier," Ben Goloff, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, called on Biden officials to "use the next two months to set up a bulwark of protections and secure their climate legacy."
"Beyond urgently getting IRA money out the door, John Podesta must commit the U.S.'s fair share of global climate finance and announce an ambitious NDC climate target," Goloff said, referring to nationally determined contributions for the Paris agreement.
Biden, he added, "has to make good on last year's agreement to transition away from fossil fuels by rejecting pending mega-polluting project," and "should also act quickly to fill all federal judicial vacancies as a wall of defense to Trump's rampage of legal attacks."
Jamie Minden, acting executive director of the youth-led movement Zero Hour, also declared that "before Trump takes office, President Joe Biden must reject all pending LNG export permits and stop the expansion of fossil fuels."
"Our climate is on the brink of collapse, and it is sheer madness that politicians continue to expand and subsidize deadly fossil fuels," Minden said. "Young people are fighting for our planet because we are facing the worst consequences of the unrelenting greed of these selfish politicians."
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