Response to COP28 climate fund scandal: the UAE’s Alterra Fund is deceitfully channeling money into oil and gas projects
Altérra has funneled money through secondary sub-funds managed by Blackrock into building fossil fuel pipelines and gas projects. This includes TC Pipelines, a subsidiary of the company behind Coastal Gaslink and failed Keystone XL pipeline proposals.
At the UN climate talks in Dubai last year, COP28 President and Oil CEO Sultan Al Jaber proudly announced Altérra, a fund that he advertized to become the “world’s largest” private climate investment vehicle. At the time the COP28 Director-General and Altérra CEO said the fund would “play a critical role in driving climate investments to where it is most needed”.
Today, the news broke that despite its “climate” branding, Altérra has funneled money through secondary sub-funds managed by Blackrock into building fossil fuel pipelines and gas projects. This includes TC Pipelines, a subsidiary of the company behind Coastal Gaslink and failed Keystone XL pipeline proposals.
Altérra has allocated $300 million to BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Fund IV, described as a fund focussed on the energy transition and climate solutions However, Climate Home News reports that one of the Blackrock fund’s largest and most recent transactions has been in the joint acquisition of the Portland Natural Gas Transmission System, along with Morgan Stanley.
Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International Global Public Finance lead says:
“Altérra is a deceitful greenwashing distraction making money off fossil fuel investments and calling it climate action. Any fund that invests in oil and gas expansion or that gives Big Oil decision-making powers is not a climate fund. The same goes for Azerbaijan’s recently announced Climate Finance Action Fund. Investing in fossil fuel expansion is unthinkable when the majority of oil, gas, and coal in existing fields and mines must stay underground to keep warming below 1.5ºC.
“Countries should focus instead on ensuring COP29 delivers what is needed: a large, accessible, grant-based new climate finance goal (NCQG) and national climate plans (NDCs) that end fossil fuel expansion and phase-out fossil fuel production.
“We can raise enough public money for a full, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout and build a renewable economy in its place. We just need to make polluters pay for their climate destruction, not let them run greenwashing funds.”
Zaki Mamdoo, StopEACOP Campaign Coordinator says:
“The Altérra climate fund, marketed as the world’s biggest climate fund, is simply the world’s biggest climate scam. Frontline communities, especially those in the so-called global south, need direct support for renewable energy initiatives and social development programs that genuinely reflect their aspirations and which pursue locally and democratically determined developmental pathways. These initiatives must create energy access for the millions who currently lack it.
“Funding labeled as ‘climate solutions’ cannot be diverted into fossil fuel investments and greenwashing practices aimed at profit maximization. It is this level of detachment and carelessness shown by world leaders who remain married to their profit motives and extractive industry that underscores the ongoing need for ordinary people to escalate our fight for a truly just transition. This absolute scandal surrounding Altérra should further erode any illusions people may have had in capitalist solutions to the climate crisis. What we truly need are reparations, debt cancellation and restorative justice to meaningfully implement a just transition that is rooted in the wellbeing of all our people and which leaves no one behind.”
Andreas Sieber, 350.org Associate Director for Global Policy and Campaigns says:
“The UAE’s Altérra Fund is a charade of green investment, masquerading as a climate initiative while directing investments into fossil fuel pipelines and gas projects. Funding infrastructure to burn more fossil fuels is the main cause of the climate crisis and the opposite of a climate fund. This deceitful scheme, a flagship of last year’s COP presidency, channels money via secondary funds managed by Blackrock rather than their own, to hide its true motives.
“The UAE is quickly losing the little remaining credibility it had in addressing the climate emergency. The world, particularly communities most affected by daily climate impacts, cannot afford further investment in fossil fuels and certainly not such outrageous greenwashing. We urge COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber to stop funding fossil fuels in the name of a climate fund.”