The world’s biggest lender to energy and climate action projects almost doubled the funds given to fossil fuels between 2007 and last year, a report released yesterday said.
The European Investment Bank (EIB), a bigger lender than the World Bank, also tripled its lending to renewable energy according to the campaign group behind the report, Bankwatch. However, the group said that overall, the bank is failing in its responsibility to further EU goals, including cutting carbon emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020.
“Our study highlights once more the secret hypocrisy at the heart of EU climate action,” Bankwatch energy co-ordinator Piotr Trzaskowski said.
“While the EU appears to be the world’s most progressive actor in the global struggle against climate change, the financial arm of the union is putting billions of euros of public money into energy infrastructure that will lock in countries into a fossil-fuel dependent path for four or five decades. Considering what we are hearing from [the UN climate talks in] Durban this week, if even the EU acts this way, we are tragically on a sure road to disaster,” Trzaskowski said.
The EIB offers loans subsidized by government guarantees, but at the UN climate change negotiations in South Africa on Wednesday, climate change expert Nicholas Stern told delegates that rich nations were wasting money and disadvantaging renewable energy by giving away tax breaks, loans and other subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Last month, the International Energy Agency said that on current trends, the world will have built enough fossil-fuel burning plants by 2016 to break the 2oC limit deemed “safe” by scientists.
The Bankwatch report shows EIB fossil-fuel lending rose from 2.8 billion euros (US$3.7 billion) in 2007 to 5 billion euros, while renewable energy loans rose from 1.7 billion euros to 5.8 billion euros. Funding for power transmission infrastructure rose over fourfold over the period, from 1.1 billion euros to 4.6 billion euros. Loans for nuclear power fell from 200 million euros to zero last year.
Bankwatch also criticized the EIB for allotting less than 5 percent of the 49 billion euros over the four years to energy efficiency projects: fossil fuels got seven times more.
“It is imperative that the EIB revises its energy policy in line with climate science, as well as with EU 2050 climate objectives,” Bankwatch EIB co-ordinator Anna Roggenbuck said.
“The EIB should immediately stop lending to coal, the most carbon intensive type of energy generation, and develop and implement a plan to phase out lending to other fossil fuels and prioritize energy efficiency as the most important area of intervention,” she said.
A spokesman for the EIB said energy efficiency is the greenest form of energy there is and that the bank was committed to supporting key investment in projects that support the fight against climate change.
“The EIB adopted a new energy lending policy in 2007 which is based on the two priority areas of climate action and energy security. This new approach ensures a selective approach to coal and lignite-fueled power stations,” the spokesman said.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
RSS