Quantifying the Shift of Public Export Finance from Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy
Share
Public export credit agencies (ECAs) play a pivotal role in enabling energy projects by providing guarantees and direct lending. Despite their importance for global greenhouse gas emission pathways, systematic assessments of their role in the low-carbon transition remain limited.
This NEWPATHWAYS webinar presents a recent study that analyses 921 energy deals backed by ECAs from 31 OECD and non-OECD countries (excluding Canada) between 2013 and 2023. The findings reveal that while the share of renewables in global ECA energy commitments rose substantially during this period, ECAs remain heavily involved in the fossil fuel sector. Support patterns vary widely across technologies, value chain stages, and countries.
The results highlight that portfolio “greening” is primarily driven by members of the E3F climate club, reshaping deal financing structures and redirecting finance flows towards high-income countries. These insights underscore the need to reconsider ECA mandates and strengthen international cooperation in climate-related export finance.
Speaker: Paul Waidelich, Researcher at ETH Zurich – Energy and Technology Policy Group
Discussant: Samuel Fankhauser, Professor of Climate Change Economics and Policy at the University of Oxford
Moderator: Johannes Emmerling, Researcher at CMCC
For more details: