Green Groups Call on EXIM to Reject PNG LNG Project

(Common Dreams, Portland, 29 August 2023) More than two dozen advocacy groups from Papua New Guinea, the Asia Pacific region, and the United States on Tuesday urged the U.S. export credit agency to reject a liquefied natural gas project that they warned “presents significant financial risks and opportunity costs, as well as harmful climate impacts.” The groups — including the Center for Environmental Law and Community Rights Inc. (CELCOR), Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth (FOE) United States, Global Witness, Oil Change International (OCI), and Sierra Club — wrote to U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) Chair Reta Jo Lewis about the Papua LNG project led by TotalEnergies. The coalition argued that approving Papua LNG not only would contradict the Biden administration’s 2021 pledge to end new public support for fossil fuel energy projects abroad and “further position the United States as an international laggard on climate, but would further jeopardize international climate goals, risk $13 billion USD in stranded assets, and put Pacific frontline communities at further environmental, social, and economic risk.”