Research

There is growing recognition that central banks must act to confront the climate crisis. They have the tools to catalyze and accelerate the end of financing for fossil fuels – through monetary policy, regulatory action, and excluding fossil fuel assets from their own portfolios. But, with only limited exceptions, they are not using these tools. This report identifies 10 criteria for assessing central banks against the Paris Agreement’s objective, and applies them to assess 12 major central banks.

Instead of funding clean energy solutions, G20 governments and multilateral development banks still overwhelmingly fund the problem, averaging nearly $72 billion per year in public finance for fossil fuels compared to less than $19 billion per year for renewable energy.

A handful of wealthy countries are still funding fossil fuels instead of climate action, giving 3.6 times more public money to prop up fossil fuels than they’re giving to developing countries to address climate change.

But as shown in a briefing released by Oil Change International today, while Annex 2 (developed) countries continue to debate how to honor their commitment to provide $100 billion each year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts, these same countries are providing five times more public support for fossil fuel production and consumption than they have so far pledged in climate finance. These fossil fuel subsidies are driving the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions and therefore directly undermining investments to reduce climate impacts.

Here in Doha for the UN climate negotiations, we've just released new analysis that shows that fossil fuel subsidies in rich countries are, on average, five times greater than those same countries' pledges towards climate finance.

Our latest report finds that global fossil fuel production and consumption subsidies are at least $775 billion annually and could be $1 trillion or even more. There is an urgent need for transparency in subsidy reporting.