Oil Change International publishes upwards of 20 reports and briefings every year focused on supporting the movement for a just phase-out of fossil fuels.
A new analysis finds that six major multilateral development banks provided over $7 billion in public financing for fossil fuels in 2015, and over $83 billion in financing for fossil fuels from 2008 to 2015, despite public claims of the urgent need for action on climate.
If the world is going to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change, international financial institutions—including the World Bank—must do their part. The World Bank has made commitments to fight against climate change but continues to finance fossil fuel exploration, production, and combustion—the primary drivers of climate change.
The World Bank Group continues to invest in exploration for new fossil fuel reserves despite clear signs that we already have far more fossil fuels than we can afford to burn, and over the last five years, the World Bank Group’s total fossil fuel finance has trended upwards, with finance into the billions of dollars nearly every year.
This report assesses how four multilateral development banks (MDBs) — World Bank Group, Inter- American Development Bank, African Development Bank, and Asian Development Bank — are measuring up in their efforts to address the global energy access challenge.
Despite repeated calls for urgent action on climate change, the World Bank Group increased funding for fossil fuels in its last fiscal year. The World Bank’s increase in fossil fuel finance is especially disappointing as 2014 was the first full fiscal year following the World Bank’s commitment to limit coal financing due to climate concerns.
Today, Oil Change International and the Sierra Club released a report finding that none of the major multilateral development banks are succeeding in reaching the world’s poor with their energy projects.
World Bank Group finance for fossil fuel exploration projects from FY2008 to 2013 was highest in 2013, at nearly $1 billion out of $2.7 billion total for fossil fuel projects.
The World Bank Group (WBG) increased financing for both fossil fuels and large hydropower significantly this past year, while financing for clean energy dropped. Overall, only 8 percent of the Bank’s energy financing last year was aimed specifically at the poor.
The World Bank’s infrastructure program in Indonesia stipulates policies and government subsidies that promote the accelerated development of over 16 GW of coal power projects in the country ahead of developing feasible renewable alternatives.
The World Bank Group is experiencing clear difficulties in synching its core lending and its energy strategy with climate goals, and the institution has taken steps that can easily be viewed as creating a conflict of interest. Given these difficulties and contradictions, the institution should focus on cleaning up its own act before making further forays into climate finance initiatives.
