ECAs play lip service to coal withdrawal but ignore oil & gas

(CIS University of Zurich, 2 April 2020) ECAs  are  a  hitherto  under-researched  contributor  to  lock-in  of  fossil  fuel  infrastructure.  This  study  reviews  external policies  and  standards  as  well  as  internal  policies  and  commitments  that  may  affect  ECAs’  portfolios –  specifically  their  support  to  fossil  fuel  and  low-carbon  technology  projects.  Most international standards are applied on a purely voluntary basis. Moreover, they are mainly focused on increasing transparency and promoting social and environmental safeguards while not directly affecting the ECAs’ portfolios. Most importantly, none of them has explicit requirements to phase out support to fossil fuels and align operations with the Paris Agreement. The standards thus do not support fossil fuel project support phaseout.