Adding Fuel to the Fire: Export Credit Agencies and Fossil Fuel Finance

Export credit agencies are little-known government-backed financial institutions that provide loans, guarantees, and insurance with the aim of supporting exports of goods or services from their country to outside markets. This report from Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth U.S. shows that since the Paris Agreement was made, G20 countries have used their export credit agencies to provide nearly 12 times more finance to fossil fuels than to clean energy. 

Utilizing data from Oil Change International’s Shift the Subsidies database, the report’s key findings include:

• From 2016 to 2018, the export credit agencies of G20 countries provided more than $31 billion USD per year in public finance to the oil, gas, and coal industry. 
• Despite international restrictions on coal finance for many G20 export credit agencies through an OECD agreement in 2015, their finance for coal projects actually increased in 2016 to 2018 compared to 2013 to 2015.
• Japan topped the list of governments providing the most export credit support to oil, gas, and coal around the world, followed closely by China, with Korea and Canada rounding out the top four.

This continued funding to the fossil fuel industry are fundamentally at odds with keeping warming at a safe level below 1.5°C as well as the strong public support for bold action on climate change. The authors call on export credit agencies to immediately end their support for all oil, gas, and coal projects in order to prevent runaway warming.