 |
|
|
G-8 Efforts to Curb Climate Change
Undermined by their own Export Credit Agencies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 09, 2001
CONTACT:
In Genoa: Antonio Tricarico (Eyes on SACE) mobile +39.328.84 85 448
Additional Contacts: Crescencia Maurer (World Resources Institute) +1
202/729-7600
Jon Sohn (Friends of the Earth US) +1 970/349-0376
Daphne Wysham (Institute for Policy Studies) + 1 (202) 234-9382
Genoa– Efforts by the Group of Eight (G-8) Leaders to curb global
climate change are being undermined by powerful financial institutions
known as export credit agencies from industrialized nations, a coalition
of development watchdog groups warned today.
The United States has come under fire from many of its fellow G-8 member
governments for President George W. Bush’s recent decision to scuttle
the Kyoto Protocol over the question of whether developing countries should
likewise decrease their carbon emissions. Yet the U.S. export credit agencies
(ECAs), along with those of other industrialized nations, are aggressively
increasing the carbon emissions in the developing world through the construction
and expansion of fossil fuel projects there.
“As world leaders grapple with how to reduce the greenhouse gases
that could lead to catastrophic climate change, their own ECAs are pouring
billions of dollars each year into dirty energy projects that will worsen
the problem,” said Jon Sohn, International Policy Analyst for Friends
of the Earth US.
ECAs have collectively become among the largest taxpayer-supported institutions
backing infrastructure projects in the developing world, now surpassing
even the World Bank. Most of these powerful institutions still have no
environmental or human rights safeguards, and operate in near total secrecy.
ECAs routinely use public money to finance fossil fuel power plants in
the developing world.
According to the World Resources Institute, from 1994 through the first
quarter of 1999, ECAs from Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States
supported $103 billion in exports or investments for fossil-fueled power
generation, oil and gas development, transportation infrastructure, aircraft
sales, and energy-intensive manufacturing (such as petrochemicals, pulp
and paper, and iron and steel) in developing countries.
Export credit agencies have been mandated by the G-8 with establishing
uniform environmental policies in the year 2001; work that was supposed
to have been completed in OECD Export Credit Group, a forum for the world’s
ECAs. Negotiators have made little progress, however, and environmental
groups from around the world are calling for the deadline to be extended.
“The dangerous persistence of ECAs in backing dirty fossil fuels
points up the urgent need for establishing common environmental standards
for ECAs that include measuring the carbon emissions of the projects they
support and shifting their investments away from fossil fuel to renewable
energy,” said Antonio Tricarico, of the Italian non-governmental
organization, Eyes on Sace.
The demands of a growing international citizens’ campaign for ECA
reform can be found in the NGO “Jakarta Declaration.” These
include greater transparency in ECA operations, binding environmental
and human rights guidelines, and a commitment from ECAs that they only
support economically productive projects. The complete text can be seen here.
For more information on ECAs and fossil fuel, see:
http://www.seen.org;
http://www.foe.org;
http://www.wri.org;
http://www.eca-watch.org
###
|
|
