Non-fossil to fossil energy ratio and scaling up climate finance in all sectors

Methodology

E3G consulted project-level datasets to determine data coverage across institutions including the Oil Change International and OECD-DAC Climate Finance datasets. Details of these can be found below. E3G also analysed The Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance data and any other climate finance data that the MDBs provided on their website. Climate finance reported in the MDB joint report can differ to that reported in the OECD climate finance database, usually due to the scope applied to the climate finance. For example, the OECD database only details finance towards ODA eligible countries. This therefore excludes a large portion of the climate financing undertaken by the European Investment Bank, who are mostly active within the European Union (EU).  

OECD DAC Recipient Perspective – Climate Finance  

Self-reported MDB project-level data on climate-related development finance is collated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC). This dataset includes both adaptation and mitigation activities.  

Oil Change International – Shift the Subsidies database 

The Shift the Subsidies database tracks energy financing for projects, policies, technical assistance, and financial intermediary projects. This includes both clean and fossil projects. In calculating ratios, E3G relied upon this dataset. The following tables illustrates how each project was categorised. The sectoral ‘tags’ on each project are provided by Oil Change International.  

In the future this section may evolve to also look at the ratio of financing at the banks that is aligned and non-aligned with the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, or a similar harmonised taxonomy that is adapted for use in different regions, once that is available and if MDBs and other public banks disclose against it. 

At COP24 the MDBs committed to “further scale-up the provision of climate finance”, which they then followed up on in their announcement at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019. This metric therefore relates to that commitment. 

Background 

This section explores the available data to determine how climate-related investment and fossil fuel investments compare across institutions. This is required to assess how an institution’s wider portfolio is aligned with global climate goals and to ensure that institutions move rapidly away from fossil infrastructure investments. Multilateral Development Banks and National Development Banks have accounted for a third of foreign direct investment into clean energy in emerging markets from 2008 to 2017, demonstrating the role they can play in supporting a transition to a low carbon economy. Multilateral Development Banks account for 10% of all Public Sector Development Banks but have a larger role as a global reference for governance, strategy and financing.