Letter: 65 Groups from 28 Countries Tell EBRD and EIB to Stop Financing Fossil Fuels
As EBRD and EIB prepare for their respective energy sector strategy reviews, 65 civil society groups from 28 countries released an open letter being sent to top EBRD and EIB officials demanding that they stop financing oil, gas, and coal projects.
Letter: 65 Groups from 28 countries Tell EBRD & EIB to Stop Financing Oil, Gas, & Coal
September 2018
As the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) releases the latest draft of its energy sector strategy and the European Investment Bank (EIB) prepares to review their energy sector lending criteria later this year, 65 civil society groups from 28 countries released an open letter being sent to top EBRD and EIB officials demanding that they stop financing oil, gas, and coal projects.
The letter calls on the European banks to stop using taxpayer money to finance new fossil fuel projects, which would take the world well beyond the Paris Agreement’s global targets of 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius and make it impossible to meet the Paris Agreement objective of “making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”
The letter emphasises how as major European institutions, the EBRD and EIB have a responsibility to meet and exceed the World Bank Group’s recent commitment, made last year, to end all financing for oil, gas, and coal extraction. Anything less than meeting that standard would be a severe abdication of these European institutions’ climate leadership.
Signatories including Bank Information Center Europe, Bretton Woods Project, CEE Bankwatch, Center for International Environmental Law, Christian Aid, Counter Balance, E3G, Food & Water Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe, Global Catholic Climate Movement, Global Witness, Oil Change International, urgewald, ZERO, and 350.org were part of the 65 organisations from 28 countries around Europe and the world who signed the letter.