Sign the petition: Stop funding fossil fuels

On 31 March 2021, thanks to the campaigning of frontline activists and civil society groups, the UK committed to mostly stop funding overseas fossil fuel projects.

However, the government also introduced loopholes into this policy to allow for continued investments in gas power projects. Our campaign continues. 

Between 2016 (when the Paris Agreement was signed) and 2020, the UK government invested nearly £4 billion of public money in fossil fuel infrastructure around the world since.

Ahead of the UK hosting the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow next year, it's an embarrassment that the UK is still dragging its heels on this issue.

CDC Group, the UK’s development bank, has invested over half a billion pounds of aid money in fossil fuels in the past decade. UK Export Finance has also given billions of pounds of support to fossil fuel exports in recent years. 

Investments like these will lock in high carbon emissions in the global south for generations to come. Although CDC now says it will stop financing fossil fuels, its new policy is also full of loopholes.

Ahead of COP26, the government must show genuine leadership and solidarity with frontline communities by ending all UK support for fossil fuels, divesting from existing projects, and stepping up climate finance to fund a just transition to renewable energy.

Please tell the Prime Minister to stop ALL funding for fossil fuels overseas now.
 

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Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, the UK is committed to making financial flows “consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development”.

Yet our latest analysis shows that billions of pounds has gone to fossil fuel investments since the Paris climate summit in 2015.

This is happening because the UK’s development strategy is shaped by the government’s Global Britain agenda, an attempt to use aid to promote British business interests and support private profit over public good.

Other aid investments in fossil fuels include:

  • The UK Africa Investment Summit - the government spent millions of pounds of aid hosting this event in London in January 202; 90% of the energy deals made at this summit were for fossil fuels.
     
  • The Private Infrastructure Development Group, which has received over $1 billion from the UK aid budget since 2002, has committed $750 million to support fossil fuel projects, using some of the world’s most polluting fuels.
     
  • Between 2016 and 2018, the Cross-Government Prosperity Fund (which uses aid money) financed 16 fossil fuel projects, including expanding oil and gas sector capacity in Brazil, Mexico, China, Myanmar, and India.

Read more in our latest briefing, Decarbonising aid.

Read more about CDC and our proposals to convert it into a Green Investment Bank in our report, Doing more harm than good.