Tipping the Scales: G20 & MDB Clean Energy Finance Overtakes Fossil Fuel Finance
Clean Energy Finance Overtakes Fossil Fuels for the First Time, but G20 Governments and Development Banks Still Fund Fossil Fuel Lock-In
Two new factsheets released by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth U.S. analyze updated data from OCI’s open-access Public Finance for Energy Database (energyfinance.org), which has been updated with 2025 data alongside the release of this report. It tracks financial flows to fossil fuels and clean energy from G20 bilateral development finance institutions (DFIs) and export credit agencies (ECAs), and the multilateral development banks (MDBs).
Tipping the Scales: G20 & MDB clean energy finance overtakes fossil fuel finance
Download Tipping the Scales: G20 & MDB Energy Finance
This factsheet assesses the trends across G20 ECA, DFIs and MDBs. Overall, it finds that between 2023 and 2025:
- Public finance for fossil fuels averaged at least USD 36.3 billion a year, compared to $52.7 billion for clean energy during the same time period. For the first time in our dataset, the three-year average for clean energy exceeds the fossil fuel average. Still, clean energy finance is nowhere near the scale needed to deliver a globally just transition that keeps temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, nor is it flowing to where it is most needed.
- 49% of all clean energy finance flowed to high-income countries based on World Bank classifications, followed by 28% to upper-middle-income countries. Less than 2% of clean energy finance flowed to low-income countries.
- 88% of all clean energy finance was provided as loans, while some Global South countries are already facing worst-in-history debt-levels. Less than 1% flowed as grants.
Exporting Climate Chaos: How much are G20 ECAs financing fossil fuels?
Download Exporting Climate Chaos: ECA Factsheet
This factsheet assesses the trends across G20 ECAs. Overall, it finds that between 2023 and 2025:
- ECAs provided an annual average of USD 26.2 billion in fossil fuel finance. This is 64% of all their energy finance, and almost three times more than their clean energy support, which averaged just $9.8 billion annually during this same period. ECAs are going against the broader positive trend, which is that of overall G20 and MDB clean energy finance overtaking fossil fuel finance.
- ECAs provided 72% of all G20 ECA, development finance institution (DFI), and multilateral development bank (MDB) fossil fuel finance. This makes ECAs the biggest fossil fuel financiers across international public finance institutions.
- ECAs provided an annual average of $26 billion for oil and gas – over 99% of ECA support for fossil fuels.