EIB’s draft climate roadmap fails to exclude funding for polluters

Brussels – A leak of the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) draft climate roadmap would allow funding for climate-destroying activities, including the fossil fuels industry, motorway expansion and industrial farming.

Greenpeace finance campaigner Piotr Wojcik said: “The world is facing multiple crises and many uncertainties. Public institutions should be doing everything they can to ensure a safe and sustainable future, but plans by the EIB, the world’s biggest public lender, would keep the door open for investments in polluting industries that fuel the climate crisis. There’s no excuse for the EU’s self-proclaimed climate bank to allow funding for fossil fuels, motorway expansion, and industrial farming.”

The draft climate roadmap will be discussed by the bank’s directors on 11 November. The EIB, the lending arm of the EU and the biggest multilateral financial lender in the world, is due to complete its roadmap for 2021-2025 by the end of 2020. The roadmap will indicate how the bank intends to align its operations with the Paris climate agreement.

Despite dropping earlier plans to continue funding airport expansion, the leaked draft indicates that the EIB will continue to finance companies that are significant emitters and have no credible decarbonisation plans. According to the document, the EIB plans to continue funding motorway expansion, industrial farming and fossil gas projects, and fails to ban funding for projects which are not aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goals until the end of 2022.

In June 2020, over 30 NGOs sent a letter to EIB President Werner Hoyer calling for the EIB to ban investments in fossil fuels, airports, and motorway expansion, and to require all high-carbon companies and financial intermediaries to adopt time-bound, science-based targets and decarbonisation plans to align with the goal of the Paris Agreement to restrict global heating to 1.5°C. — ends —

Contacts:

Piotr Wojcik – Greenpeace finance campaigner: +48 532 751 517, piotr.wojcik@greenpeace.org

Mihaela Bogeljić – Greenpeace communications: +385 92 2929 265, mihaela.bogeljic@greenpeace.org

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