EXIM Climate Advisors Quit Over Fossil Fuel Plans

(New York Times, New York, 5 February 2024) A federal bank that finances projects overseas is set to vote on Thursday on whether to use taxpayer dollars to help drill oil and gas wells in Bahrain, a contentious decision that prompted two of the bank’s climate advisers to resign, according to people with knowledge of their decisions. The two advisers, who sit on an 18-person board that President Biden created to help the bank take climate change into account when making investments, resigned last week after a meeting about the Bahrain project, according to five current and former bank officials. They described mounting frustration among climate advisory board members, who say they are being kept in the dark about upcoming fossil fuel loans and blocked from making recommendations about whether to approve or even modify a particular project. Climatewire also notes that Biden embedded climate advisers into America’s export credit agency to increase scrutiny over its investments, but their work has mostly been stymied by the agency’s continued pursuit of fossil fuel projects. Five people with firsthand knowledge of the climate council’s work at EXIM described a sense of frustration over investments into projects such as oil and gas development in Bahrain and an Indonesian oil refinery that received a $100 million loan.