How ECAs can catch up on climate action

(Global Trade Review, London, 4 August 2021) Export credit agencies (ECAs) are lagging private financial institutions in setting targets for reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions and are missing opportunities as the energy transition gets underway. That’s the argument of a University of Oxford paper published last week by a group of five researchers, including experts in trade, law and economics. Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney says in the paper’s foreword that ECAs “are increasingly conspicuous by their absence” in efforts by financial institutions to back a transition away from fossil fuels.