Oil Change International publishes upwards of 20 reports and briefings every year focused on supporting the movement for a just phase-out of fossil fuels.
This is the first factsheet in a forthcoming series that details why fossil gas is dangerous for our planet and our communities in Africa, and how gas acts as a barrier to the energy transition we need for a safe, secure and healthy future.
The following Glossary is used to help define terms as outlined in our Asia Gas Factsheet #3: No Gas Needed.
This briefing, "Japan's Dirty Secret: World's top fossil fuel financier is fueling climate chaos and undermining energy security," reveals that Japan is the world’s largest public financier of fossil fuel projects, providing 10.6 billion USD per year between 2019 and 2021. Japan has been leading the drive to expand gas consumption in Asia and is the world’s leading financier of gas infrastructure globally, spending USD 6.7 billion on gas projects on average each year between 2019 and 2021.
This report looks at G20 country and MDB traceable international public finance for fossil fuels from 2019-2021 and finds they are still backing at least USD 55 billion per year in oil, gas, and coal projects. This is a 35% drop compared to previous years (2016-2018), but still, almost twice the support provided for clean energy, which averaged only $29 billion per year.
The Sky’s Limit Africa assesses fossil fuel industry plans to sink USD $230 billion into the development of new extraction projects in Africa in the next decade — and USD $1.4 trillion by 2050. It finds these projects are not compatible with a safe climate future and that they are at risk of becoming stranded assets that leave behind unfunded clean-up, shortfalls of government revenue, and overnight job losses.
The API claims gas is the main reason US power sector emissions are down. Our latest analysis shows it's not.
Communities in Africa have generally contributed the least to climate change, been undermined the most by international trade and finance policies, and have a right to better international support for distributed renewable energy. In order to reach universal energy access before the 2030 target set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, international public finance institutions have an urgent responsibility to provide more funding and better financial transparency and tracking for distributed renewable energy. Additionally, they have a responsibility to foster local participation in and ownership of distributed renewable energy initiatives. This briefing provides recommendations for how international public finance institutions can fulfill this responsibility, while revealing that from 2016 to 2018, fossil fuels received more than 3.5 times the support than all kinds of renewable energy did during this period.
Diminishing consumer demand coupled with more affordable renewables are casting doubt on the overall feasibility and potential profitability of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
A new analysis of the energy finance provided by the African Development Bank (AfDB) shows that while financing for clean energy access has increased since the bank's landmark New Deal on Energy for Africa, support for off-grid and mini-grid solutions — often the fastest and most affordable energy access solutions — must accelerate if Africa is to realize universal energy access by 2030.
Overall, the MDBs are not financing energy access at nearly a sufficient level to meet the needs of energy-poor communities. Much of the energy access finance that is being provided is being directed to many of the communities that need it most. But even so, energy access is not reflected as a priority for the MDBs.
