European Bank for Reconstruction & Development ends all upstream oil financing

London, July 7 - Neftegaz.RU. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will no longer invest in oil & gas exploration and production, the bank’s Managing Director Harry Boyd-Carpenter told Reuters as the institution pledged to align all its activities to the Paris Agreement goals from the end of next year.
He said:

• We will no longer invest in upstream oil and gas projects
• The EBRD, however, will continue to invest in selected oil and gas projects in the downstream and midstream that are aligned to or contribute to the Paris Agreement goals

On the same day, the bank announced that its Board of Governors decided at the Annual Meeting 2021 to accelerate decarbonization across the regions it operates, supporting them to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

The EBRD’s 1^st Vice-President Jürgen Rigterink said in a statement:

• The low carbon transition requires the world economy to move in less than 30 years from a more than 80% reliance on fossil fuels to a net-zero model
  

Last year, Deutsche Bank ended financing for new oil & gas projects in the oil sands and the Arctic region effective immediately.

In the U.S., Goldman Sachs said in December 2019 that it would decline to finance new Arctic oil exploration & production and new thermal coal mine development or strip mining.
Wells Fargo and JPMorgan have also said they would stop financing new oil & gas projects in the Arctic.

Earlier this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ said that banks should finance low-carbon climate-resilient projects, not big fossil fuel infrastructure that is not even cost-effective anymore.

Author: Tsvetana Paraskova