UK Government climate targets branded ‘laughable’ as UK Export Finance supports new oil refineries abroad

(Global Witness, London, 10 October 208) On the week that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its report on the scale of the challenge to limit the dangers of climate change, the near-simulanteous announcement of new UK Government support for oil and gas abroad has been labelled “staggering.” UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK’s export credit agency which underwrites loans and insurance for risky export deals as part of efforts to boost international trade, announced on Tuesday that it is considering finance for an expansion of an oil refinery in Bahrain which would allow its total output to increase up to a maximum of 380,000 barrels per day. Adam McGibbon, Climate Change Campaigner at Global Witness, said: “As the world reels from the news that we have twelve years to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown, today’s announcement by the government is staggering. The UK claims to be a climate leader, but it continues to spend billions pumping fossil fuels out of the ground abroad." Articles in The Times, The Indpendent, BBC and Ekklesia highlight this contradictory approach.

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