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Yesterday afternoon the ten major multilateral development banks (MDBs) published their COP26 statement updating progress towards their joint commitment to Paris Alignment. Though the group of banks first committed in 2017 to a process to align their financial flows with a 1.5degC pathway and later pledged to complete this by 2020, yesterday's statement provided few new details, posed no limits on fossil fuel support, and left timelines unclear.
The group of public banks -- the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Council of Europe Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank Group, the Islamic Development Bank, the New Development Bank, and the World Bank Group -- indicated each Bank will set their own target dates for full implementation of their frameworks. The announcement left unclear the status of an 'Excluded Expenditures' list detailing projects that are never Paris-aligned. It is unclear whether further details will be included at scheduled joint events at the MDB Pavilion on 3 November and 11 November.
MDBs have directly financed at least USD 45 billion in fossil fuel projects since the Paris Agreement -- including backing an average of USD 6.4 billion per year from 2018-2020 in fossil fuels -- despite their mandates for sustainable development. In addition, research from Urgewald and Recourse show MDBs leverage billions more in support for oil, gas, and coal flows through financial intermediary investments and policy-based lending.
In contrast to yesterday's announcement, 15-20 governments and institutions are expected to launch a joint commitment to end international public finance not just for unabated coal, but also oil and gas on 4 November. Most MDBs have not announced any plans to join. While all MDBs except the AIIB, NDB, and IsDB have policies excluding direct coal finance, all but the EIB allow for finance for gas, which makes up over 80% of MDB fossil fuel support.
Quotes:
"Ending all direct and indirect financing to the supply and use of fossil fuels is the number one litmus test of whether MDBs are serious about supporting sustainable growth for developing countries, energy access, and helping the world reach climate goals. The statement released today sadly falls short of that. We need to see MDBs adopt a whole-of-institution approach to climate, rather than continuing to offer fossil finance loopholes -- loopholes that will end up being sinkholes for MDB clients." Augustine Njamnshi, Coordinator for the African Coalition for Sustainable Energy and Access
"While their Paris Alignment commitment was promising in 2017, after years of stalling the MDBs are now standing in the way of the Paris Agreement rather than aligning with it. They can change this by joining other countries and institutions in ending all fossil fuel finance, greatly increasing support for community-led energy access and just transition, and re-focusing their climate finance to serve the most vulnerable communities rather than private sector profits." Bronwen Tucker, Public Finance Campaign Co-Manager, Oil Change International
"MDBs are not only not delivering on the Paris goals, they're also actively exploiting loopholes to continue financing fossil fuels. The MDBs position is at odds with many countries' climate goals and international pledges to end public finance to fossil fuels. Instead of delaying action, MDBs need to step up and take the lead in leveraging finance away from fossil fuels and into renewables and the energy transition we need fast and at scale." Mahir Ilgaz, Global Campaign Manager at 350.org
"The African Development Bank and MDBs need to prioritize the development and implementation of a fossil fuel finance exclusion policy that will not fund, provide financial services, or capacity support to any coal, gas, or oil project or related infrastructure project that is carbon intensive on the African continent by 2022. At the least, establish an immediate ban on any new fossil fuel projects and publish a roadmap for phasing out all fossil fuel development financing to advance the just transition in line with the Paris Agreement. The policy should guide a managed and equitable phase-out, taking into account principles of equity and justice for those most affected. We need real climate action now." Dean Bhekumuzi Bhebhe - Campaigns Coordinator, African Climate Reality Project
"Significant MDB leverage over private finance comes through policy reforms aimed at attracting investors by making investments more profitable. Any MDB plan that claims to be leveraging private climate finance must include an end to policy reforms that make fossil fuels more profitable, such as tax breaks, Public-Private Partnerships, and higher consumer energy tariffs. Any Paris Alignment approach that does not end fossil-friendly policy reforms continues MDB leveraging of private finance away from climate investments." Heike Mainhardt, Senior Advisor, Urgewald
"MDBs must close coal loopholes in their indirect financing. Too often, finance invested through third parties like banks or private equity funds ends up supporting coal power plants and mines -- projects MDBs would not finance directly. Fossil fuel exclusions must apply to all types of finance -- direct, indirect, budget support and technical assistance." Nezir Sinani, Co-Director, Recourse
"MDBs lack ambition at this COP. Institutional struggles and capacity constraints overshadow their work and hinder progress towards Paris alignment. Details on the alignment of their policy based operations and intermediated investments are still missing. Under their proposed timeline, MDBs will not fully implement their Paris alignment approach until 2023 or 2024 -- seven years after their pledge made in 2017. This does not reflect the urgency of the task, and we call MDBs to join their forces and scale up their efforts towards the Paris climate goals." Dr. Anja Gebel, Policy Advisor for Development Banks and Climate, Germanwatch
"The recently published Delivery Plan on climate finance reiterated the role that MDBs play in mobilising much-needed adaptation and resilience funds to developing countries. But as the $100bn goal is likely to only be reached in 2023, the responsibility of MDBs in ensuring they have energy finance policies that support the development of clean energy and increased energy access for developing countries is even more urgent. We need to see MDBs implement their climate commitments across all instruments, and adopt policies so that MDB budget support doesn't end up promoting fossil fuels, as has happened all too often." Ladd Connell, Bank Information Centre
"The MDB Joint Paris Alignment statement talks of the decommissioning of coal alongside other high-GHG emission systems. The big question is whether the MDBs consider natural gas to be high GHG-emitting or not. Evidence suggests that natural gas is as carbon emitting as coal, because of methane leaks along gas pipelines. So we interpret this statement as signalling an end to the financing of natural gas, which would both release countries from being tied into high carbon infrastructure, and would make space for renewables, enabling alignment with the Paris Agreement." Fran Witt, Senior Advisor, Recourse
"With this statement, MDBs look out of touch with yesterday's COP leaders segment where Mario Draghi called for a stronger and more inspirational role for MDBs. The lack of ambitious commitments and concrete, forward looking targets shows that the MDBs can only agree on the lowest common denominator. We need to urgently scale investment for the energy transition in developing countries to up to $1 trillion per year by 2030 as estimated by the IEA. The MDBs have to pull themselves together: Shift investments from fossil fuels to renewable energy projects now, support a just transition, finance early retirement of coal-fired power stations and ensure a green, fair and equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic." Julian Havers, Programme Lead, E3G
"This statement of 'ambition' by ten MDBs does not contain the words 'oil' and 'gas'. In other words, MDBs are indicating that they will continue to subsidize the oil and gas industry with the concessional public finance that they provide, while failing to directly address economic and social risks, debt, as well as energy access needs. This statement is a travesty of justice." Luisa Galvao, International Policy Campaigner, Friends of the Earth U.S.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
"Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released."
In an early signal of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy plans for when he returns to office next month, the Republican said Monday "there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East" if Hamas does not release hostages taken from Israel, the occupying military force in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Trump demanded hostages seized during the October 7 attack of last year be released or his promised retribution would follow. Nearly 45,000 Palestinians have already been killed—mostly civilian men, women, and children—since Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led operation.
Of the 251 people taken captive last year, 63 are believed to be still alive in Gaza, according toThe Washington Post's tracker, which was updated last week. So far, 117 others have been freed or rescued and 71 have been confirmed killed.
After dining with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel's prime minister, at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida Sunday night, the U.S. president-elect made his threat about the hostages on his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon.
"Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East," Trump wrote. "But it's all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity."
"Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America," Trump added. "RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!"
Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large The Jewish Chronicle, responded that "this is the message the president of the USA should have sent on October 8, 2023."
Noting Pollard's comments, Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: "Genuinely interested to know what Stephen thinks the U.S. could have supported Israel to do in Gaza beyond what it currently has. Nukes?"
"This statement is unhinged—'there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East,'" Talbot added.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in the School of Security Studies at King's College London, said, "Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released."
Drop Site Newshighlighted that "Trump's statement—which follows a video released over the weekend by Hamas' armed wing featuring U.S.-Israeli captive Edan Alexander and explicitly addressing Trump—does not acknowledge that Netanyahu has repeatedly sabotaged cease-fire deals that could have freed Israeli hostages. It also appears timed to position himself to claim credit for any progress in cease-fire talks, as negotiations between Hamas and Egyptian mediators are already underway."
As the American Jewish outlet Forwardreported Monday:
The White House is attempting a final push to get... a deal done. President Joe Biden said last week that the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon had created an opportunity to reignite stalled negotiations for a similar deal in Gaza. "We will use every day we have in office to try to generate as much progress towards that end as possible," Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, said Sunday morning on ABC's "This Week."
Given the failed efforts in the past, the families of the American hostages are hoping Trump could leverage his popularity in Israel and his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take immediate action during the transition period. "Trump must not wait until he is inaugurated to help reach a deal that secures the freedom for Edan, six other Americans, and the rest of the hostages," Adi and Yael Alexander, the parents of Edan, said on Saturday.
Despite an abundance of evidence showing how Israel is using U.S. weapons to slaughter civilians in Gaza and severely restricting the flow of humanitarian aid while claiming to target Hamas, Biden and Congress have refused to cut off arms to Netanyahu's government. In fact, just hours after the cease-fire between the Israeli government and Hezbollah took effect—a deal that Israel has since violated approximately 100 times—the Financial Times reported last week that "Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel."
"These deals essentially pay industry to inflict more suffering on already climate-ravaged communities," said one local opponent of efforts to further expand gas exports in the region.
How do local communities lose out when governments invest in fossil fuel facilities instead of community needs?
That's the question at the heart of a new Sierra Club report released Monday, titled "The People Always Pay: Tax Breaks Force Gulf Communities to Subsidize the LNG Industry"—which details the extent to which the export market for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, benefits from billions of dollars in tax breaks in Louisiana and Texas—revenue that could be invested in public infrastructure, schools, and other priorities.
In the past decade, after an export ban was lifted by the Obama administration in 2015, the United States has shifted from an importer to a mass exporter of LNG, which a recent Cornell University study revealed has worse impacts than coal. Critics warn that investment in LNG causes environmental harm and hampers the transition to a green economy. Export terminal sites are concentrated along the Gulf Coast, primarily impacting impoverished coastal communities in Louisiana and Texas, according to the Sierra Club's report.
"The immense scale of tax breaks granted to billion-dollar LNG projects—millions of dollars per job—is mind-blowing. These deals essentially pay industry to inflict more suffering on already climate-ravaged communities by polluting the air and water while depriving Gulf Coast communities of vital revenue for schools, infrastructure, healthcare, emergency services, coastal restoration and protection," said James Hiatt, founder of For a Better Bayou and a resident of Calcasieu Parish in Louisiana, who is featured in the report.
The report relies on interviews with community members and takes a close look at the primary tax abatement programs that LNG export projects have benefited from, respectively.
Under two Louisiana tax break programs—the Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP) and another called Quality Jobs—nine operating, proposed, or under-construction LNG export terminals have been provided $21.6 billion. In Cameron Parish, for example, home to Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass LNG facility, the company is set to receive $4.9 billion in ITEP subsidies between 2012 and 2040, according to the report. In total, Cameron Parish residents are set to lose out on $14.9 billion in revenue from 2012-2040 due to ITEP subsidies for various LNG export terminals.
That investment in fossil fuel facilities translates to a lost $3.8 billion that could go towards schools and another $2.4 billion that could go towards health services, according to the authors of the report.
The report also details how bolstering the LNG market has adversely impacted the local economy.
For example, for Cameron Parish and nearby Calcasieu Parish, the rapid development of petrochemical facilities in the area has increased ship traffic. The Port of Cameron was once the country's largest producer of seafood, according to the report, but dredging and erosion stemming from ship traffic has made it hard for aquatic life to thrive: "While Cameron Parish had a fleet of 250 fishing vessels in 2005, nowadays, only a few dozen remain and some fishermen claim to see only 12 to 15 people working on the water every day, with others forced to supplement their income with additional jobs."
The report highlights that a grassroots organization in Louisiana found that ITEP applications from 1998 to 2017 pledged over 121,000 new jobs, but that the companies actually experienced a net loss of over 26,500 jobs.
The impact on communities is not just economic. According to the report, in Texas' Golden Triangle, a highly industrialized petrochemical corridor that includes the cities of Port Arthur, Beaumont, and Orange, residents breathe in polluting vapors that increase potential health harms.
"Among other pollutants, refineries produce benzene, a carcinogen that can result in leukemia or severe bone marrow damage. On average, an estimated one in 5,000 people in the Golden Triangle are at an incremental lifetime cancer risk, despite the EPA’s upper limit of acceptable cancer risk being one in 10,000," the report states.
Given the sizable tax exemptions in both Louisiana and Texas pledged for projects that are not yet up and running—in addition to the environmental degradation that is guaranteed with further expansion—the Sierra Club argues that making sure they are never built is "exactly what is necessary to avert the worst of the climate crisis."
"President Biden must use the power of the pen to protect those seeking sanctuary from the coming deportation machine that will crush the human rights of our immigrant neighbors," said one Amnesty leader.
As an estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants brace for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's return to office, Amnesty International on Monday called for immediate action from the outgoing Biden administration to "protect people seeking safety."
While Amnesty and many other migrant rights advocates have forcefully criticized President Joe Biden's immigration policy, Trump's dehumanizing attacks, promises of mass deportations, and history of forcibly separating families at the southern border have heightened fears of what his second term—with a Republican Congress—will mean for immigrants with and without papers.
"Time and time again, President Biden said he was committed to a humane immigration system, and this is [his] final opportunity to help those coming to the United States in search of safety and a new beginning, like his ancestors did many years ago," Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O'Brien said of a president who often references his family's Irish roots.
"President Biden must use the power of the pen to protect those seeking sanctuary from the coming deportation machine that will crush the human rights of our immigrant neighbors and those who have dreams of finding refuge here," O'Brien argued.
"President-elect Trump already has plans in place to start a massive deportation effort and completely gut the very foundation of asylum on day one of his second term."
Specifically, Amnesty is urging Biden to issue new Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and deferred enforced departure designations, extend authorization dates for individuals who have already been paroled into the United States, and expand legal pathways and protections for farmworkers and undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
The group also wants the president to prioritize additional resources for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to address the long backlogs and issue protections for those who have applications pending for advanced parole, asylum, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, TPS, and work permits.
The group is further calling on him to "stop detention expansion efforts, shut down the most problematic detention centers that have long perpetuated violence and harm toward people seeking safety, and release vulnerable individuals and those who are eligible for TPS and parole."
Amnesty's demands of Biden come just seven weeks away from Trump's inauguration—and the Republican has already made clear that he's prepared to make immigration policy a priority with some of his leadership picks: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for homeland security secretary; family separation architect Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy; and former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Tom Homan as "border czar."
As USA Todayreported Sunday, Miller and Homan have promoted different approaches to Trump's pledged deportations. Under an ICE-focused plan that Homan laid out shortly before the election, it would be "business as usual, but times two," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told the newspaper.
"Stephen Miller is absolutely apocalyptic about what mass deportations would look like on his end," Reichlin-Melnick continued. "He talks about detention camps in Texas with very clear, specific operational details."
According to the newspaper:
By all accounts, it appears Trump is siding with Miller for now.
Trump recently confirmed reports that he plans to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to conduct mass deportations.
But no matter how Trump carries out mass deportations, Reichlin-Melnick said the damage to the United States will be significant.
"Even if it doesn't end up being 11 million people, the fear has real effects on the people who become the target of this very hungry deportation machine."
Given the looming threat, Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International USA, stressed the urgency of Biden acting now.
"President-elect Trump already has plans in place to start a massive deportation effort and completely gut the very foundation of asylum on day one of his second term. There simply is no time to lose," Fischer said. "We cannot allow the continued disintegration of the country's immigration system and the targeted rhetoric and violence toward people seeking safety at the border and new arrivals thriving in cities and towns across the United States."
"Some of these actions that President Biden must take will help slow down any mass deportation efforts and will send a strong message to people seeking safety that they are welcome in the United States," Fischer added. "This is his last chance."