November, 01 2022, 01:12pm EDT
![Oil Change International](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012638/origin.png)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nicole Rodel – nicole@priceofoil.org (SAST)
Bronwen Tucker – bronwen@priceofoil.org (ET)
New Report: International Public Finance for Fossil Fuels Dropped in 2021, but a Rebound Is Likely Unless Key Governments Deliver on Pledges
Researchers highlight that greatly increased international public finance for clean energy is the solution to the energy crisis, not more fossil investments. If all G20 countries and MDBs shift their fossil support to clean, this would nearly triple clean energy finance to $85 billion.
To view the full report: https://priceofoil.org/g20-at-a-crossroads
To access the interactive data: energyfinance.org
WASHINGTON
A report released today by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth U.S. reveals that between 2019 and 2021 the G20 countries and multilateral development banks (MDBs) provided at least USD 55 billion per year in international public finance for fossil fuels. This is a 35% drop compared to previous years (2016-2018), but still, almost twice the support provided for clean energy, which averaged only $29 billion per year.
However, report authors warned that international public finance flows are often volatile and that to be aligned with climate goals, public support for fossil fuels needs to end entirely. To continue this trend of decreasing fossil support, key G20 governments will need to meet a joint pledge made by 39 countries and institutions at last year's global climate conference to end direct international public finance support for fossil fuels by the end of 2022 and instead fully prioritize public finance for clean energy.
Today's report highlights that G20 countries Canada, United States, Germany, and Italy continue to be large fossil financiers, while lagging behind on publishing their policies to deliver on this Glasgow Statement. However, a growing number of their peers have reaffirmed clean energy is the path to affordable energy, not fossil gas. With one week left until the global climate conference in Egypt and two months left until the end of 2022, policies released by UK, EIB, Denmark, France, Finland, and Sweden completely ban support for gas extraction, processing, and key infrastructure like LNG and pipelines. They place varying restrictions on support for gas power.
The report also finds that if all G20 countries and MDBs fully shift their international fossil support to clean energy it would nearly triple their current annual average for clean energy to $85 billion. To reach this total, other large G20 providers of public finance, including Japan, South Korea, and China, will need to join their peers as Glasgow Statement signatories and meet the new commitment.
Other key findings include:
- Japan, Canada, Korea, and China again provided the most direct public finance for fossil fuels between 2019 and 2021, with an annual average of $10.6 billion; $8.5 billion; $7.3 billion, and $6.7 billion respectively. These countries have remained in the top position for the entire 2013-2021 dataset.
- 53% of international public finance for fossil fuels flowed to gas projects. This $30 billion a year is larger than what any other energy type received from 2019 to 2021, and greater than all renewable energy finance combined.
- Most G20 and MDB international fossil fuel finance flowed to relatively wealthy countries. Mozambique was the only low-income country in the top 15 recipients, and 12 were high or upper-middle income countries.
- An estimated $8.2 billion or 27% of the 2021 drop in fossil fuel finance is due to new policies. The decrease in fossil support for 2019 to 2021 was driven by a dramatic drop in 2021. However, early 2022 data for Canada and a decrease in data availability for South Korea suggest that 53% of the decrease will be temporary unless new fossil fuel restriction policies are adopted. The bright spot is that 27% of the drop is traceable to new fossil-restricting policies from the UK, European Investment Bank, China, OECD, and others coming fully or partially into effect.
- Clean energy finance to African countries has been decreasing, from an annual average of $3.2 billion between 2016 to 2018, down to $2.8 billion annually between 2019-2021. This falls well short of what is needed to meet both energy access and climate imperatives across the continent.
The evidence to end public finance for fossil fuels and rapidly increase international support for clean energy has never been clearer: in the IEA's 1.5degC scenario there are no investments in new fossil fuel production beyond 2021 and there is a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels across the rest of the supply chain. Despite calls for new gas investments to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the head of the IEA has said that the solution to the energy security and price crisis is a faster transition from fossil fuels to clean energy requiring public finance to shift out of dirty, unreliable and unaffordable oil and gas and into reliable, affordable and clean energy and energy efficiency.
Public finance for fossil fuels undermines the effectiveness of climate finance, which is still not delivered at either the scale promised by rich countries ($100 billion a year in additional finance from 2020) or needed. It also adds to the growing costs of loss and damage finance and sovereign debt cancellation the UN Secretary General and UNCTAD among others are urgently calling high-income countries to pay their fair share for.
Using data from Oil Change International's Public Finance for Energy Database (energyfinance.org), a database covering over 15,000 public finance for energy transactions, totalling over $2 trillion, the report analyzes finance provided by the G20 export credit agencies (ECAs), G20 development finance institutions (DFIs), as well as the major multilateral development banks (MDBs). It does not cover direct domestic subsidies for the industry through tax and fiscal subsidies or public finance from domestically focused institutions.
Quotes:
Claire O'Manique, a lead author and Public Finance Analyst at Oil Change International, said: "International public finance is urgently needed to build a globally just energy transition. But it cannot play this critical role if G20 countries and MDBs continue to funnel $55 billion annually into climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects. The climate movement will continue to hold wealthy countries accountable for their role in funding the climate crisis, and demand they move first and fastest to phase out their fossil fuel production, stop funding fossils, and pay their fair share of a globally just energy transition. It is well past time that public finance dollars are spent to remedy fossil fuel colonialism by funding real solutions."
Kate DeAngelis, a lead author and International Finance Program Manager at Friends of the Earth United States, said:"Last year many of the world's largest public financiers of overseas fossil fuel projects, including the United States, committed to end all public finance for international fossil fuel projects and shift this money to clean energy. Since then, we have seen some leaders hold firm to those commitments while the United States and others have failed to release their policies on implementing these promises. These institutions for decades have financed fossil fuel projects all over the world that have harmed communities, killed workers and community members, and caused environmental destruction. It is time for this deleterious financing to end."
Anabela Lemos of Justica Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique said:"This report highlights the immense amount of funding that the world's wealthiest countries continue to pour into fossil fuel projects in Africa to the detriment of Africa's citizens. The current rush for Africa's fossil fuel resources amounts to a perpetuation of extractive modes of colonial exploitation, devastating the continent's agricultural and forest resources and depriving local communities of their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives."
Lidy Nacpil of Asian Peoples' Movement on Debt and Development said:"Public finance continues to support coal and other fossil fuels in Asia despite the current climate emergency. The devastating impacts of the climate crisis is most dramatically and tragically demonstrated by the recent catastrophic flooding that saw a third of Pakistan under water. If governments and multilateral institutions do not end their support for the fossil fuel industry, these tragic events will only become more common and more severe.
Tasneem Essop, Executive Director at CAN International said:"Hard earned taxpayers' money cannot be used by governments to prop up fossil fuel projects domestically or abroad. The G20 countries who together contribute more than 80% of global emissions cannot support this criminal waste of public resources that is driving the climate emergency, exacerbating conflicts, adding to the cost of living crisis and increasing poverty, sickness and climate disasters. Public finance - the people's money - must be used to help people transition to clean and sustainable energy systems and towards a climate safe future for all."
May Boeve, Executive Director at 350.org said: "It's time for governments to show what real climate leadership looks like and end international public finance for fossil fuels. If we want to keep global heating below 1.5 degrees, a managed decline of fossil fuel production is the only way, and the only language these profit-mongering fossil fuel companies understand is money. We need an efficient use of energy alongside a massive roll-out of renewables. It's time to turn off the money pipeline to dirty fossil fuels and invest in all of our futures."
Aki Kachi, Senior Climate Finance Policy Analyst at NewClimate Institute said:"Especially considering the current energy crisis in Germany, there is a clear need to support other countries to avoid German mistakes that have exacerbated its vulnerability. That means building energy security through renewables and not future fossil fuel dependency. It is imperative that Germany's implementation of the Glasgow Statement is ambitious instead of seeking to find loopholes."
Hadi Jatmiko, Head of WALHI's National Campaign Division, said:"International financing from wealthy G20 governments' public finance institutions for energy projects with fossil fuel sources in Indonesia, has contributed greatly to the sinking of coastal villages in Indonesia. Every year, 1 hectare of land is lost along the coastal area of Demak, Central Java Province due to rising sea levels, besides the financing of this climate-destroying project has also destroyed the economic life of fishermen and increased the number of fishermen who died at sea. In 2010 the number of fishermen who died was recorded as 87 people. But in 2020, the number has increased to 251 people. Due to unpredictable weather driven by climate change, fishermen in Indonesia can only go to sea for six months of the year. The rest of the year they have to change professions to become rough coolies or hawkers. On top of this, flash floods, landslides, and seroja storms are becoming more intense and more frequent throughout Indonesia. Stopping financing for climate-destroying projects and fake solutions to the climate crisis cannot be delayed, must be done now unconditionally, shifting financing to clean, equitable, sustainable and decentralized energy projects."
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.
(202) 518-9029LATEST NEWS
US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
slammed the bill as a "xenophobic attack" meant to silence "Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices."
Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
"What we've found is that these measures have a disproportionate impact on voters with disabilities, both Black and white," NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior policy counsel Jared Evans
toldNola.com earlier this week.
"It's clear that their goal is to make it harder to vote, harder for specific communities to vote especially," Evans added. "What they don't realize is that these laws hurt white voters, too."
In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
ordered county election offices to stop registering voters with past felony convictions who have not received official pardons. The move came after the state's unicameral Legislature passed a bill granting voting eligibility to felons immediately after they have completed their sentences instead of waiting two years.
"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular