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For Immediate Release
December, 12 2017, 09:30am EDT
Contact:
Alex Doukas, alex@priceofoil.org, +1 202-817-0357, David Turnbull, david@priceofoil.org, +1 202-316-3499
At the One Planet Summit, the World Bank Steals The Show by Phasing Out Upstream Oil and Gas Finance
WASHINGTON
At the One Planet Summit in Paris, France, the World Bank announced, among other positive steps, that they "will no longer finance upstream oil and gas, after 2019."
In response to the announcement, Oil Change International released the following statements:
Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International, said, "It is hard to overstate the significance of this historic announcement by the World Bank. Environmental, human rights, and development campaigners have been amplifying the voices of frontline communities for decades in calling for an end to World Bank financing of upstream oil and gas projects. Today the World Bank has raised the bar for climate leadership by recognizing the simple yet inconvenient truth that achieving the Paris Agreement's climate goals requires an end to the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. We congratulate the World Bank, and we look forward to working with them and other partners towards a managed decline of fossil fuel production, and a just, equitable transition to a global clean energy economy. It is time for all of the institutions, countries, investors and individuals who are still in the Paris Agreement to stop funding fossils - once and for all."
Alex Doukas, Stop Funding Fossils Program Director at Oil Change International, said, "This commitment from the World Bank demonstrates true climate leadership. This sends a clear signal to the world that the fossil fuel era is ending, and that government money can no longer be used to prop up oil, gas, and coal production. Given what we know about the climate crisis, ending fossil fuel finance is simply the rational and moral thing to do. Other finance institutions must now follow the World Bank's lead and move to stop funding fossils. It is important to note that midstream and downstream oil and gas finance are also major contributors to climate change, and must be addressed to remain within the climate limits established by the Paris Agreement."
Notes:
- Despite their climate commitments, many governments and institutions in attendance continue to finance fossil fuels. Public finance institutions controlled by G20 governments, along with multilateral development banks, provided $71.8 billion per year on average in public finance for fossil fuels, and only $18.7 billion on average for clean energy between 2013-2015.
- The World Bank Group already has a policy in place that restricts support for coal-fired power plants and for thermal coal mining. With the addition of upstream oil and gas to thermal coal mining, this commitment means that the World Bank will no longer finance fossil fuel extraction after 2019, except in extreme cases.
- According to Oil Change International's Shift the Subsidies Database, the World Bank Group provided an average of over $1 billion per year in upstream oil and gas finance (for the three years from FY2014 through FY2016).
- Just prior to the One Planet Summit, over 200 civil society groups demanded a commitment to phase out subsidies and public finance for fossil fuels as soon as possible and no later than 2020, except in extreme cases where there is clearly no other viable option for increasing energy access to the poor.
- A briefing titled "Dirty Dozen," released by the Big Shift Global campaign the day before the summit, highlights some examples of the types of destructive fossil fuel projects that public finance continues to prop up.
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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Supreme Court Extends Block on Trump's Alien Enemies Act Deportations
One attorney in the case called the ruling "a powerful rebuke to the government's attempt to hurry people away to a gulag-type prison in El Salvador."
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In a 7-2 ruling—with far-right Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito dissenting—the high court found that President Donald Trump violated Venezuelan migrants' right to due process as a class by trying to fast-track their deportation to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act during peacetime.
The ruling is not a repudiation of Alien Enemies Act deportations and focuses solely on migrants' due process rights.
"Notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster."
"The detainees' interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty," the court's opinion states. "Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster."
"But it is not optimal for this court, far removed from the circumstances on the ground, to determine in the first instance the precise process necessary to satisfy the Constitution in this case," the court continued and, referring to the federal appellate court that "erred in dismissing the detainees' appeal for lack of jurisdiction," said that "we remand the case to the 5th Circuit for that purpose."
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project and lead counsel in the case, said Friday that "the court's decision to stay removals is a powerful rebuke to the government's attempt to hurry people away to a gulag-type prison in El Salvador."
"The use of a wartime authority during peacetime, without even affording due process, raises issues of profound importance," Gelernt added.
The Supreme Court opinion noted the case of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man with protected status who was wrongfully deported to CECOT in March. Last month, the high court unanimously ruled that Trump must facilitate Abrego García's return to the United States. The Trump administration has resisted the order, despite the president proclaiming that "if the Supreme Court said, 'Bring somebody back,' I would do that."
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest U.S. Muslim advocacy group, on Friday sent an open letter authored by its director of government affairs, Robert S. McCaw, urging every member of Congress to "please vocally speak out against the start of the Israeli government's plan to 'occupy and flatten' Gaza while herding any surviving Palestinians into camps before eventually expelling them from their land."
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Local and international media reported that at least 115 Palestinians including children were killed by Israeli attacks since dawn Friday, with air, artillery, and tank strikes concentrated in Beit Lahia and the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
"Netanyahu has declared that there is 'no way' Israel will stop the war, even if all hostages are released, and he has vowed to completely reoccupy Gaza and force remaining Palestinians off their land," McCaw wrote. "His Cabinet has formally approved a full-scale ground invasion and permanent military occupation of the Gaza Strip. One senior Israeli minister openly stated that Gaza will be 'completely destroyed.'"
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Israeli and international critics accuse Netanyahu of risking the lives of 23 living hostages still being held by Hamas by prolonging the war in a bid to forestall a reckoning in his
criminal corruption trial.
"Netanyahu has made clear what he plans to do: destroy Gaza and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people, even if it means starving and slaughtering the Israeli hostages along with them," CAIR said. "There is no more time left to sit on the sidelines, make symbolic statements, or hope something better will happen."
"Netanyahu has made clear what he plans to do: destroy Gaza and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people."
"Children are being blown to pieces every single hour with American weapons," the group noted. "Babies are starving to death while food rots at the Gaza border. Mothers and fathers are dying with them, and the Israeli captives held in Gaza are at risk of starving to death or being killed by the Israeli government's indiscriminate bombing campaign."
"Please speak up forcefully and demand an end to this madness before there is no one left to save," the letter implores.
Earlier this week, Ben Cohen, co-founder of the Ben & Jerry's ice cream company, was arrested after disrupting a Senate hearing, shouting, "Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the U.S." as he was hauled off by police.
"Congress and the senators need to ease the siege," Cohen added. "They need to let food into Gaza. They need to let food to starving kids!"
The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, published Monday, states that 244,000 people in Gaza are now in Phase 5, defined as such "an extreme deprivation of food" that "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident."
At least scores of Palestinians—including a minimum of 57 children and 14 elders—have died of severe malnutrition combined with lack of medical care throughout Gaza, United Nations experts and human rights groups said in recent days.
Already suffering under an Israeli blockade imposed in 2007 after Hamas took power in the coastal enclave, Gazans have been ravaged by hunger and illness due to the "complete siege" imposed by Israel immediately after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. The siege was tightened on March 2, when Israel stopped all lifesaving supplies—including food, medicine, fuel, and cooking gas—from entering the strip.
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As Republicans in Congress pressed ahead this week with a plan that would cause at least 8 million Americans to lose Medicaid as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump, a recently published working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, first reported on by The New York Times, shows that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
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The researchers told the Times that the timing of the release of the working paper was not connected to Congress' current conversation around Medicaid, though they told the outlet that the debate made their findings especially relevant.
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