Fossil Finance Violations: Tracking Fossil Fuel Projects that violate commitments to end international public finance for fossil fuels
*Updated June 2024* Oil Change International analysis shows that several major countries continue to pump $6.2 billion in public finance into international fossil fuel projects despite committing to end this support by the end of 2022.
*Updated 4 July 2024*
Updated analysis by Oil Change International shows that six countries, including the Switzerland, United States, Germany, Italy and Japan, have broken their promise to end international public finance for fossil fuels by the end of 2022.
Clean Energy Transition Partnership signatories have provided at least $9.8 billion in international public finance for fossil fuel projects since the end of 2022. With Japan, who is not a signatory to CETP, but part of a near identical G7 commitment the total increases to at least $14.5 billion.
Six countries also have at least 21 fossil fuel projects awaiting financing approvals, with Germany having the biggest number of projects pending.
Without this public funding, many of these projects, which are incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, would be unlikely to be able to proceed.
The Fossil Finance Violations project tracker, along with our running implementation tracker, shows that the majority of the 7 large international public finance providers that signed the Clean Energy Transition Partnership or CETP (also sometimes referred to as the Glasgow Statement) or the corresponding G7 commitment have kept their promise and not financed fossil fuels since the deadline elapsed (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and the United Kingdom). However, a handful of major countries are continuing to finance fossil fuel projects in breach of these commitments, undermining their integrity.
The tracker documents project approvals or pending projects that have been made publicly available. Due to transparency issues and lags in reporting on project finance, it likely may not include all projects that have been approved or are under consideration that violate the CETP.
The countries with repeated violations of their commitment(s) to end fossil fuel finance are:
- Switzerland has approved the most fossil fuel finance of the CETP signatories since the end of 2022 deadline passed, providing a total of almost $3.6 billion for 5 projects. This includes almost $2.5 billion for one gas power plant in Turkmenistan.
- The U.S. has approved the most fossil fuel projects of CETP signatories since the end of 2022 deadline passed, providing a total of almost $3.2 billion for 10 projects. In December 2023, US-EXIM also provided its first domestic fossil fuel support of $90 Million to Freeport LNG. While the U.S. has reportedly adopted a policy to follow through on its commitments to end international public finance for fossil fuels, it is refusing to publish it.
- Italy approved almost $1.6 billion in finance for 5 projects in 2023. Its fossil finance policy released in early 2023 has the largest loopholes for fossil fuels of any CETP policy to date.
- Germany approved $998 million in finance for 7 projects since the end of 2022. In November 2023, new rules came into effect for Germany’s export credit agency, which fall short of the CETP pledge. A policy for the German development bank, KfW, came out in December 2023, falling short of the CETP promise by continuing downstream gas and some midstream gas support, with concerning loopholes.
- Japan, which is not a CETP signatory, but is a part of the G7 commitment, has approved at least $4.7 billion in finance for 14 fossil fuel projects since the end of 2022. It is consistently ranked as the largest international public financier in the G20, and its policy includes exceptions that continue to allow for the ongoing support of fossil fuels.