Amid U.S. Cries for Climate Action, Export-Import Bank Set to Approve Iraq Gas Project
WASHINGTON — Today, the board of directors at the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is scheduled to approve support for a fossil fuel project in Iraq. This financing is one of many fossil fuel projects EXIM is considering supporting or has voted to finance in 2023, including:
- Approving almost $100 million for an oil refinery in Indonesia.
- Approving $400 million for Trafigura to aid in US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
- Potentially backing Papua LNG in Papua New Guinea, oil and gas development in Bahrain, and oil and gas development in Guyana.
This latest support for gas in Iraq comes amid President Biden’s promises to use the whole of the U.S. government to address climate change, during climate week events in New York. EXIM’s continued approval of fossil fuel financing shows the weak guidance from the federal government, as well as stubborn resistance to Biden’s 2021 commitment in Glasgow promising an end to overseas fossil fuel investment.
“Yet again the U.S. Export-Import Bank is directly contradicting Biden’s climate goals by supporting yet another fossil fuel project,” said Kate DeAngelis, Senior International Finance Program Manager for Friends of the Earth U.S. “Continued fossil fuel development undermines and potentially negates any meaningful investment in renewable energy around the globe. While EXIM bankrolls one fossil fuel project after another, our planet inches closer and closer to destruction.”
As the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have made clear, any new oil and gas investment is incompatible with preventing global temperatures from exceeding 1.5ºC.
Press Contact: Shaye Skiff, Friends of the Earth United States, [email protected]