Tag Archives: Ecologic

Green surge – 13 reasons why the Greens are a party whose time has come Updated for 2026

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After thousands of new members have joined this week, the Green Parties in Scotland and England and Wales now have more than both UKIP and the Lib Dems.

Farage’s party has 41,943, the Lib Dems head of membership tells me that they now have 44,680. On Wednesday, the Greens gained 2,000 members across the UK and overtook UKIP.

Today, Thursday, so far, they’ve gained more than 2000 more. As I write, Scottish Greens + the Green Party of England and Wales are at a combined total of 44,713.

In 2003, there were around 5,000 signed up Greens across the UK. That’s about the same number as has joined this week. What’s caused this growth, which has now so dramatically accelerated?

1) The debates

There’s something strange about British politics: an obsession with process. A huge portion of people feel that the exclusion of the Greens from the election debates is unfair.

For those who vote Green, or were thinking about it, being told that their chosen party isn’t significant is almost a personal affront. Hundreds of thousands signed a petition calling on the Greens to be included. Some clearly decided that they’d go one step further, and sign up.

2) The referendum

A huge portion of the growth took place in Scotland the week after the independence referendum – when the Scottish Greens grew from 1,800 members to 7,500. But it wasn’t just in Scotland. There was a significant surge in Green support in England and Wales that week too.

As one new member in Oxford put it to me, they and their partner had been students at Glasgow university. They were excited by the radical independence campaign, ‘Green Yes’, and the broader Yes movement. That’s what inspired them to join.

3) The Labour Party

It’s been 21 years since Tony Blair became leader of Labour. And throughout that time, despite ‘modernising’ it he also become a shield for it. People could persuade themselves that they still supported Labour, they just didn’t like Blair.

When Miliband came in, the excuses were gone. What was clearly the most left of the centre-left candidates of Labour had won the leadership. And the party still supported austerity. Without the charisma to be blamed personally, people started to look more closely at the party as a whole, and have found it wanting.

Look at a timeline of the growth in Green membership, and there were two, almost simultaneous events which happened before it started. If one was the referendum, the other was the 2014 Labour Party conference.

4) It’s the economy, stupid

Perhaps in a bid to stem the Green tide, Ed Miliband gave a speech about how much he cares about climate change.

Now, here’s the thing. I suspect he means it. But saying you care about climate change if you aren’t willing to stand up to big oil companies would be like saying you care about inequality without being willing to tackle bankers’ bonuses.

The fundamental problem in society is the power of massive corporations – of capital. And as long as Miliband and Balls promise to retain Tory cuts, as long as Labour remains a party of austerity, they will always look like they are on the side of capital, not ordinary people.

To put it another way, people have joined the Green Party because it opposes austerity and Labour doesn’t: the Greens have become the reasonable party of the left. 

5) The Lib Dems

A huge portion of the new Green membership is under the age of 30. The older ones in this group largely voted Lib Dem in 2010, and were then disenchanted not just by the trebling of fees but the blatant cynicism of Lib Dem leaders betraying their solemn promises.

The younger ones are of the sort who the Lib Dems were good at attracting five years ago. No more. For a long time, Lib Dems were able to appeal to different electorates by pretending to be very different things. Being in government meant they could only be one of those things.

6) UKIP

One consistent message from new members is that they felt so horrified by the rise of UKIP that they had to do something. The sense that Greens have the only party standing up to UKIP rather than pandering to them seems to have attracted many to the party.

A case in point here is the surge in Green membership around the Rochester and Strood by-election, where the party ran with the slogan “say no to racism”. When I got off the train in Rochester on polling day, the first person I bumped into had a big Green Party badge on, and had just joined, largely for that reason.

Likewise, though it’s uncomfortable for many Greens to admit this, UKIP have reshaped British politics in a way that’s good for outsiders of all hues.

They’ve shown that you can have huge political influence by supporting a party that will almost certainly not be in government; along with the SNP, they’ve made newer and smaller parties the major story of this election, and they’ve generated (along with the yes campaign) a sense that the establishment is on the run. These things all help Greens.

7) The politicisation of young people 

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the growth of the Greens is that around a quarter of new members are under 30. It used to be that the first rule of generation Y was ‘don’t join anything’. The fact that thousands have broken that is fascinating.

Specifically, the generation who flooded central London with angry protests four years ago has now graduated, and is facing a general election.

Looking for political organisations they can join now that their student union days are behind them and their university societies distant memories, they’ve largely rejected – or, more tellingly, not even considered, the NGOs that the New Left of their parents generations built.

They are interested in questioning power and the inter-relationships between problems, not just campaigning on one single issue after another. They don’t just want to sign petitions, they want to organise collectively to challenge those who rule them, and the Green Party has become a key path to do that through.

8) Syriza, Podemos and the global fightback 

This generation is very alert to the political mobilisations taking place across Europe. It was not just that the Scottish referendum showed that participating in official politics could be effective, even transformative.

The rise of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain in particular are inspiring a younger generation to rethink the opportunities offered by electoral and party politics

9) The snowball effect 

If the referendum and the Labour conference were the two external events which kicked off the surge, there was an internal one too.

The Green Party of England and Wales got quite a lot of coverage, back in September, for passing 20,000 members. This chat about joining clearly acted as an encouragement to lots of people to join, because there was a huge boost to membership in the next few days.

10) Natalie’s tours

Natalie Bennett is the second ever Green Party leader – before her, there was Caroline Lucas, and before her, there wasn’t a leader.

Caroline, because she was candidate and then MP in the target constituency, had to pour a huge amount of her time into Brighton. Natalie, on the other hand, has been touring the UK, often speaking to public meetings two or three times a week.

On Wednesday night, the day that 2,000 people joined the party, 600 people in Exeter turned out to hear Natalie Bennett speak. Tonight, hundreds are hearing her speak in Norwich. For two and a half years, week after week, local parties have reported surprisingly large turnouts – with two or three hundred people showing up where they usually get five to a meeting.

That means there are thousands of people across the country who’ve been to a public meeting with Natalie Bennett. I know some who have joined directly because of that.

It’s worth asking the question: of the new members, who finally made up their mind and joined because of one of the more short term factors above, how many were in one of those meetings? Or were recruited by someone who joined at one of those meetings?

More generally, having a national leader who isn’t also the key target candidate has given the party the chance to develop a national strategy, outside of the few strongholds its traditionally done well in.

11) The move to the left

Greens have always been on the left. But they haven’t always been very good at sounding like it. Instead, too often, they’ve sounded like a sort of preachy hair-shirt party, who wants to tax anything fun.

Of course, more often this is an image painted of the party by its enemies, but Greens haven’t always been brilliant at challenging it.

Equally damaging, there’s long been a sense that Greens are a single-issue environmental party. In order to combat this, it was important that Greens spend a lot of time telling a different story about themselves. And, for years, they largely failed to do this – instead using party communications to appeal to the select group who already agreed.

With Caroline and then Natalie out in front, and with the (left leaning and very influential) Young Greens and groups like Green Left organising among the activists, the image presented in recent years has been much more consistently left. Gone are the days of ‘not left or right but forwards’. The party is now clearly an electoral expression of the emerging new left.

Last year, the minority in the party who don’t like this (old fashioned ecologist liberals) set up a group to oppose this shift. As a response to the ‘watermelons’ of Green Left (green on the outside, red in the middle), they established a conference newsletter ‘the kiwi and the lime’ (green all the way through).

Their protests were largely ignored, and the surge in membership is the party’s reward: at new members meetings all across the country, people cite the Greens opposition to austerity, and being the only party left on the left, as key reasons for joining. 

12) Staying radical

For a long time, Greens had radical policies – like supporting Basic Income – but were often a little embarrassed to talk about them. Natalie Bennett, who has an impressive grasp of the complexities of policy, has been more comfortable highlighting such ideas.

After the financial crisis, huge numbers are coming to the conclusion that ideas which aren’t radical aren’t enough, and Greens have got a lot better at attracting them.

13) Telling a story about the party

For years, the party used to seem to basically put out press releases in response to external events, long after the articles about them had been written.

Not only was this a useless media strategy, it also failed to tell any clear story about who the party was. And so people accepted stories written by others (cf hair shirts).

Since Natalie’s taken over, they’ve been much better at gaining proactive media coverage, and been much more willing to embrace conflict and controversy (because the opposite of being controversial is being ignored).

Whether gaining headlines by announcing support for a £10 minimum wage or getting praise for bare-knucked denunciations of Farage’s migrant-bashing, the leading Greens have got much better at using the media to paint a picture of a party that’s on the left side of the brewing culture war, that’s fearless in the face of the establishment.

Of course, what happens next is all to play for.

 

 

Adam Ramsay is the Co-Editor of OurKingdom and also works with Bright Green. Before, he was a full time campaigner with People & Planet. His e-book ‘42 Reasons to Support Scottish Independence‘ is now available.

Author’s declaration of interest: I am a long-standing member of the Green Party.

This article was originally published on openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

Creative Commons License

 

 




389127

Oil prices and the devil’s ransom Updated for 2026

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There has been a fascinating debate developing in the environmental movement – particularly in The Ecologist – over the meaning and effect of the oil price collapse.

Most recently, environmental consultant Paul Mobbs declared that “environmentalists should be cheering on OPEC!” for increasing production and lowering prices, thereby driving the ‘unconventional’ production (like tar sands mining) out of the threshold of economic viability. Unfortunately, the debate seldom zooms out at some of the broader conditions that caused the collapse.

Mobbs’s enthusiastic support of oil production in Saudi Arabia manifests a powerful rebuttal to Steve Melia’s dispatch on the troubled thesis of peak oil.

Whereas Melia claims we must continue to resist fossil fuels for the sake of the environment through civil disobedience not unlike the vital anti-roads movement of the 1980s, Mobbs seems to believe that “keeping the oil in the ground” will be counterproductive to the short-term goals of environmentalists.

Symptoms of a wider economic malaise?

To shore up his hypothesis, Mobbs argues against Melia’s claim that low prices are a challenge to the peak oil hypothesis of gradually increasing prices. The ecological metabolism of peak oil is responsible for the oil price crash, since the increased production of oil stems from high-cost and low-yield production, such as tar sands, which is being undercut by Saudi oil, causing oil prices to decline.

But, Mobbs ventures, this is not a sign of the supply and demand of oil. Instead, it is a complex phenomenon that involves the stagnation of the whole economy. Mobbs cites the declining prices of other commodities as evidence.

Mobbs does not provide a clarification by referencing recent economic events, which hinders his argument. After the housing market crash of 2007, investors from more prosperous financial centers of the world shifted capital to land speculation and resource extraction in the Global South.

This ‘spacial fix‘, to use geographer David Harvey’s term, remains part of an economic program called ‘credit easing’, through which junk loans are backed by land grabs. The so-called ‘fracking revolution’ in the Bakken Shale plays an important role in the US’s own attempts to emerge from the recession.

Busting the global resource grab

According to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Adam Sieminsky, “just six tight gas plays taken together account for nearly 90 percent of domestic oil production growth and virtually all domestic natural gas production growth in the last 2 years.”

Bakken is 67% of oil growth, and Marcellus is 75% of gas growth. Bakken is relatively low-cost, high yield, while Marcellus has proven far more problematic for investors in the area (due in large part to the sheer amount of speculation happening).

But therein lies the rub: a financialization bubble bursts, leaving resource extraction to mop up the mess, but the glut of oil production is facing diminishing markets abroad. Between 2008-2015, production will have expanded by 3 million b/d, while US demand will have fallen by 1.5 million b/d.

With Saudi Arabia refusing to maintain the high prices by decreasing its own production, choosing instead to “ride out the oil price slump” as the NY Times put it, the relative growth of production against demand has caused low prices.

As oil prices decline, the prices of other commodities decline, because oil factors into every level of the supply chain, from the manufacture of the machines to work a mine or a tractor to the running of the machines themselves to the manufacture of the commodity to the transport of the commodity to market, and virtually all transports in between.

Due to the oil prices, food prices, for instance, are predicted to drop 10-15%, according to Arab News. Furthermore, along with the sharp rise of oil production since 2008, the extraction of tin, copper, and virtually any other commodity has risen as well.

Gluts have appeared across the board, while demand has declined-a phenomenon that has caused tremendous problems in supply chains for countries like China and Brazil.

In the North Atlantic, on the one hand, the banks have refused to invest in small businesses and homeowners, and on the other hand, working people have less confidence in the economy and their political representatives. Hence the Fed and the ECB have been unable to switch back from extractionist positions of ‘credit easement’ to their earlier financial policies.

Geopolitical games – or coincidence?

There are at least three spins that one could put on the oil price collapse and its implications. The one preferred by industrial actors around the world expounds the low price as a natural fix, which will decrease production, increase consumption, and eventually drive the price back to a higher equilibrium.

The challenge here would be, as Mobbs indicates, maintaining high-cost, unconventional projects at a price equilibrium, but that is a matter of eventuality, since the conventional crude is running out.

The second spin is that collapse of oil prices marks a natural boom-bust cycle of extractivist oligarchs who push supply beyond demand, only to have markets contract into a perfect situation for further speculation.

The final spin, of course, is more closely related to the attempts made by the BRICS countries to shift away from petrodollars and dollar hegemony while cutting oil and gas networks throughout Asia without regard for the interests of NATO.

This final proposal marks a gap in Mobbs’s thesis: namely that it is OPEC that is responsible for the price decline. Instead, it is largely Saudi Arabia, with Venezuela taking a brutal hit to the balance books, and scrambling to prop up prices.

As The Telegraph noted, lower prices is bringing about a possible new era, which is ushered in not by OPEC, itself, but by an inter-OPEC crisis marking the crucial geopolitical rift that the oil price collapse plays into.

For its part, The Economist‘s blog, Buttonwood’s notebook, has put up a cheeky graph identifying the “Red Army signal“ showing how every price collapse in oil has come directly after a Russian foreign intervention: most recently, the intervention in Crimea, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan before it, which prompted Saudi Arabia to increase oil production and saturate the market.

This is the “cunning of history”, and the US’s connections to the House of Saud stands as reason enough for The Economist‘s bloggers to gloat. What is left between the lines is what Vijay Prashad calls “dispossession by manipulation.”

Opposing interests clash on Middle East battlefields

All the above proposals may, in fact, have some degree of truth, but the crucial focus should not necessarily be Russia or Venezuela or even Iran, but the battlefields on which their interests collide.

The oil price collapse is hindering Iraq’s ability to fight the menace of IS that remains ensconced in its third largest city, Mosul, while retaining the social services necessary to maintain a tenuous order.

Supporting the Kurds seems to have been the US’s most successful attempt thus far in confronting IS in Northern Syria and Iraq, but the presence of Kurdish HPG guerillas in Iraqi Kurdistan, who are also connected to the Kurdish YPG/YPJ self-defense forces fighting IS in Northern Syria, rankles the Turkish government to no end.

Turkey does not want to see its southern territories turned into an autonomous Kurdistan tied to the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. In fact, the Turkish state seems more willing to help IS than the Kurds. If the Kurds are unable to fight down IS, oil prices will rise once again, which seems to be in the interests of oil producers.

An old Kurdish proverb states, “A head that is to be cut off cannot be ransomed” – and it applies here: IS serves a purpose, if not a devious one. Although the EIA posits that oil spot prices will continue to decline until 2018, prices may settle to a bottom later this year, only to increase once again because of regional discord.

And having sent Russia, Iran, and Venezuela a cruel message, along with Iraq and the Kurds, the North Atlantic oil companies may return to their traditional profits and risky, unconventional projects against the will of environmentalists like Mobbs who see the current price collapse as a prospect for greener pastures.

 

 

Alexander Reid Ross is a contributing moderator of the Earth First! Newswire and works for Bark. He is the editor of ‘Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grab’ (AK Press 2014) and a contributor to Life During Wartime (AK Press 2013).

 




389095

Oil prices and the devil’s ransom Updated for 2026

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There has been a fascinating debate developing in the environmental movement – particularly in The Ecologist – over the meaning and effect of the oil price collapse.

Most recently, environmental consultant Paul Mobbs declared that “environmentalists should be cheering on OPEC!” for increasing production and lowering prices, thereby driving the ‘unconventional’ production (like tar sands mining) out of the threshold of economic viability. Unfortunately, the debate seldom zooms out at some of the broader conditions that caused the collapse.

Mobbs’s enthusiastic support of oil production in Saudi Arabia manifests a powerful rebuttal to Steve Melia’s dispatch on the troubled thesis of peak oil.

Whereas Melia claims we must continue to resist fossil fuels for the sake of the environment through civil disobedience not unlike the vital anti-roads movement of the 1980s, Mobbs seems to believe that “keeping the oil in the ground” will be counterproductive to the short-term goals of environmentalists.

Symptoms of a wider economic malaise?

To shore up his hypothesis, Mobbs argues against Melia’s claim that low prices are a challenge to the peak oil hypothesis of gradually increasing prices. The ecological metabolism of peak oil is responsible for the oil price crash, since the increased production of oil stems from high-cost and low-yield production, such as tar sands, which is being undercut by Saudi oil, causing oil prices to decline.

But, Mobbs ventures, this is not a sign of the supply and demand of oil. Instead, it is a complex phenomenon that involves the stagnation of the whole economy. Mobbs cites the declining prices of other commodities as evidence.

Mobbs does not provide a clarification by referencing recent economic events, which hinders his argument. After the housing market crash of 2007, investors from more prosperous financial centers of the world shifted capital to land speculation and resource extraction in the Global South.

This ‘spacial fix‘, to use geographer David Harvey’s term, remains part of an economic program called ‘credit easing’, through which junk loans are backed by land grabs. The so-called ‘fracking revolution’ in the Bakken Shale plays an important role in the US’s own attempts to emerge from the recession.

Busting the global resource grab

According to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Adam Sieminsky, “just six tight gas plays taken together account for nearly 90 percent of domestic oil production growth and virtually all domestic natural gas production growth in the last 2 years.”

Bakken is 67% of oil growth, and Marcellus is 75% of gas growth. Bakken is relatively low-cost, high yield, while Marcellus has proven far more problematic for investors in the area (due in large part to the sheer amount of speculation happening).

But therein lies the rub: a financialization bubble bursts, leaving resource extraction to mop up the mess, but the glut of oil production is facing diminishing markets abroad. Between 2008-2015, production will have expanded by 3 million b/d, while US demand will have fallen by 1.5 million b/d.

With Saudi Arabia refusing to maintain the high prices by decreasing its own production, choosing instead to “ride out the oil price slump” as the NY Times put it, the relative growth of production against demand has caused low prices.

As oil prices decline, the prices of other commodities decline, because oil factors into every level of the supply chain, from the manufacture of the machines to work a mine or a tractor to the running of the machines themselves to the manufacture of the commodity to the transport of the commodity to market, and virtually all transports in between.

Due to the oil prices, food prices, for instance, are predicted to drop 10-15%, according to Arab News. Furthermore, along with the sharp rise of oil production since 2008, the extraction of tin, copper, and virtually any other commodity has risen as well.

Gluts have appeared across the board, while demand has declined-a phenomenon that has caused tremendous problems in supply chains for countries like China and Brazil.

In the North Atlantic, on the one hand, the banks have refused to invest in small businesses and homeowners, and on the other hand, working people have less confidence in the economy and their political representatives. Hence the Fed and the ECB have been unable to switch back from extractionist positions of ‘credit easement’ to their earlier financial policies.

Geopolitical games – or coincidence?

There are at least three spins that one could put on the oil price collapse and its implications. The one preferred by industrial actors around the world expounds the low price as a natural fix, which will decrease production, increase consumption, and eventually drive the price back to a higher equilibrium.

The challenge here would be, as Mobbs indicates, maintaining high-cost, unconventional projects at a price equilibrium, but that is a matter of eventuality, since the conventional crude is running out.

The second spin is that collapse of oil prices marks a natural boom-bust cycle of extractivist oligarchs who push supply beyond demand, only to have markets contract into a perfect situation for further speculation.

The final spin, of course, is more closely related to the attempts made by the BRICS countries to shift away from petrodollars and dollar hegemony while cutting oil and gas networks throughout Asia without regard for the interests of NATO.

This final proposal marks a gap in Mobbs’s thesis: namely that it is OPEC that is responsible for the price decline. Instead, it is largely Saudi Arabia, with Venezuela taking a brutal hit to the balance books, and scrambling to prop up prices.

As The Telegraph noted, lower prices is bringing about a possible new era, which is ushered in not by OPEC, itself, but by an inter-OPEC crisis marking the crucial geopolitical rift that the oil price collapse plays into.

For its part, The Economist‘s blog, Buttonwood’s notebook, has put up a cheeky graph identifying the “Red Army signal“ showing how every price collapse in oil has come directly after a Russian foreign intervention: most recently, the intervention in Crimea, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan before it, which prompted Saudi Arabia to increase oil production and saturate the market.

This is the “cunning of history”, and the US’s connections to the House of Saud stands as reason enough for The Economist‘s bloggers to gloat. What is left between the lines is what Vijay Prashad calls “dispossession by manipulation.”

Opposing interests clash on Middle East battlefields

All the above proposals may, in fact, have some degree of truth, but the crucial focus should not necessarily be Russia or Venezuela or even Iran, but the battlefields on which their interests collide.

The oil price collapse is hindering Iraq’s ability to fight the menace of IS that remains ensconced in its third largest city, Mosul, while retaining the social services necessary to maintain a tenuous order.

Supporting the Kurds seems to have been the US’s most successful attempt thus far in confronting IS in Northern Syria and Iraq, but the presence of Kurdish HPG guerillas in Iraqi Kurdistan, who are also connected to the Kurdish YPG/YPJ self-defense forces fighting IS in Northern Syria, rankles the Turkish government to no end.

Turkey does not want to see its southern territories turned into an autonomous Kurdistan tied to the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. In fact, the Turkish state seems more willing to help IS than the Kurds. If the Kurds are unable to fight down IS, oil prices will rise once again, which seems to be in the interests of oil producers.

An old Kurdish proverb states, “A head that is to be cut off cannot be ransomed” – and it applies here: IS serves a purpose, if not a devious one. Although the EIA posits that oil spot prices will continue to decline until 2018, prices may settle to a bottom later this year, only to increase once again because of regional discord.

And having sent Russia, Iran, and Venezuela a cruel message, along with Iraq and the Kurds, the North Atlantic oil companies may return to their traditional profits and risky, unconventional projects against the will of environmentalists like Mobbs who see the current price collapse as a prospect for greener pastures.

 

 

Alexander Reid Ross is a contributing moderator of the Earth First! Newswire and works for Bark. He is the editor of ‘Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grab’ (AK Press 2014) and a contributor to Life During Wartime (AK Press 2013).

 




389095

2015 – the fossil fuel endgame begins Updated for 2026

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2014 was the hottest year on record. It was also the year, the industry that’s driving the warming came under unprecedented fire. As temperatures rise, so does the climate movement!

At the climate talks in Lima in December, politicians were for the first time talking about a goal to phase out carbon emissions by mid-century. That would mean the end of the fossil fuel industry as we know it.

2015 is going to be critical for the climate. At the end of the year, world leaders will gather in Paris to attempt once again to secure a global climate deal.

Given their track record, they will not act in accordance with the urgency of the climate crisis while the fossil fuel industry holds the balance of power. Therefore, the climate movement will turn up the heat to erode the industry’s might.

Already, people all over are gearing up to confront dirty energy projects, demand solutions and build pressure on decision makers. A key effort that has helped to build renewed momentum on climate change last year is the fossil fuel divestment campaign.

Removing the fossil fuel industry’s social license to operate

For decades, fossil fuel companies have successfully blocked political action on climate change. These companies have five times more carbon in their reserves than can be burnt to stay below the politically agreed 2 degrees global warming.

In other words, 80% of their current reserves are unburnable. For Europe, this translates into 89% of coal, 21% of oil, and 6% of gas reserves, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature last week. Yet, fossil fuel companies spend billions every year to discover and develop yet more carbon.

Every institution that stops funding fossil fuel companies, is taking an active step towards removing the industry’s social acceptance and consequently its political influence. It is therefore not just actual divestment wins, the campaign aims to elevate the public debate leading to a change in social norms.

In 2014, the number of institutional divestment commitments more than doubled. High-ranking figures such as former archbishop Desmond Tutu, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim got behind the campaign.

It is hard to believe that the divestment campaign kicked off only just over a year ago in Europe. Since then campaigns urging local authorities, universities, religious and other institutions have popped up at a dizzying pace, adding up to 94 active campaigns throughout the continent.

The European movement has already celebrated a number of big wins. The University of Glasgow has become the first academic institution in Europe to ditch its fossil fuel holdings. Boxtel in the Netherlands and Örebro in Sweden are the first local authorities on the continent to divest.

The Quakers in Britain and the Church of Sweden were among the first faith-based organisations to lead the way, and the British Medical Association has become the first medical organisation in the world to ban investments in fossil fuels.

Making fossil fuels history

Besides the rapid pace with which the divestment movement is spreading, it is its breadth and diversity that lend it its power. Diversity is essential to achieving social change.

What started with student campaigns at US college campuses, now encompasses a large variety of different groups of people. It is a movement of citizens who do not want their pension money invested in companies whose business model is based on undermining the very future their pension is meant to safeguard.

It is doctors who are concerned about the health impacts of climate change. It is people of faith who believe in our moral obligation to care for creation. It is academics demanding their institution’s finances stop undermining its mission.

It is concerned citizens from all walks of life who believe in climate justice, the stewardship role public institutions should play and in doing what’s right.

This first year has only been the start of the divestment movement in Europe. The year ahead already holds big promises as campaigns build their power to confront the power of the fossil fuel industry. The movement is also gaining strength globally. The first divestment campaigns have started in South Africa and the Pacific Islands.

On 13-14 February, the global movement is going to show its collective force. On Global Divestment Day, thousands of people everywhere will turn out to demand institutions do what is necessary for climate action by divesting from fossil fuels.

Local authorities will come under pressure to walk their talk on climate. New campaigns will be launched. University students will hold flash-mobs, vigils, sit-ins and rallies calling upon their endowments to invest in a liveable future.

Faith leaders and people living on the frontline of climate change will band together to urge their communities to divest from climate destruction. Individuals will close their accounts with banks investing in climate chaos.

Fossil fight-back goes into a tailspin

Of course the fossil fuel industry and its backers have also started to fight back fiercely, dismissing the movement and attacking divestment decisions.

Maybe it’s just coincidence – but big fossil’s attempt to dictate the terms of the debate comes at a time when large parts of the energy industry are in deep trouble owing to low energy prices, with oil sinking below $50 a barrel, and gas fast following suit.

High-cost ‘unconventional’ oil and gas – from shale fracking, tar sands, the Arctic and deep water marine wells – is already a loss-making proposition. One small Texas shale oil company went bust only last week. Many more will surely follow.

Of course prices could rise again – but the current financial bloodbath that has overtaken fossil fuels will permanently spook investors, who will no longer see fossil fuel investments as a reliable cash cow, but as a hazardous proposition fraught with financial risk.

As the fossil fuel industry throws more money at fossil fuel expansion, the divestment movement too is turning up the volume.

And now, history is on our side. Investors are turning away from fossil fuels in droves as fear of loss overtakes greed for profit, and as the ‘unburnable carbon’ meme hits home with a resounding slam that will reverberate through 2015, and beyond.

 

 

Melanie Mattauch is 350.org Europe Communications Coordinator. 350.org is building a global climate movement and initiated the Fossil Free campaign.

Action: Global Divestment Day, 13th-14th February.

 

 




388839

UK’s soaraway financial support to foreign fossil fuels Updated for 2026

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The UK government financial support to fossil fuel industries abroad has soared to over £1 billion a year under the Coalition, according to an analysis by Greenpeace Energydesk.

The total support for fossil fuel industries amounts to £1.76bn-worth of Export Credit Guarantees between 2010-2014, underwritten by taxpayer’s money.

And of that, almost £1.1bn was handed out in the last financial year, 2013 / 2014, more than ten times up on two years previously.

This is despite PM David Cameron recently publicly decrying fossil fuel subsidies, and the financial backing breaks a promise set out in the coalition government’s manifesto.

David Cameron denounced “economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers” at the Ban Ki Moon climate summit in September.

The coalition manifesto stated the new government would use Export Credit Guarantees for “innovative and green technologies, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

UKEF’s fossil fuel support hits new heights

UK Export Finance Agency (UKEF) is authorised by the government to decide what to financially back and their main instrument is the Export Credit Guarantee. These are designed to minimise the risk of making deals abroad for UK exporters.

In practice this means UKEF can work with banks to partially underwrite bonds that are a sort of insurance policy on the contract – and expected by the overseas buyer to be provided by the exporter. This supports the deal by releasing the working capital paid by the overseas buyer to the exporter, which can be used instead of placing it with the bank.

UKEF also provides insurance for UK exporters to protect against non-payment or other issues that commercial insurance won’t provide, as well as sometimes lending money to the buyer of the UK export so that they can pay them directly.

In the four years since the coalition government came into power in 2010, UKEF has announced significant support for a range of overseas fossil fuel projects – from backing for coal mining in Russia to oil and gas exploration in Brazil.

Last financial year was a particularly big one in terms of financial backing for fossil fuel projects, with over £380 million going to Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras – which also happens to be embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal.

This was as part of a US$1 billion – around £660 million at current rates – line of credit signed with the firm in 2012. The deal involves UK drilling services for oil and gas exploration in Brazil, and presumably offshore exploration, too, since one of the UK firms specialises in subsea engineering.

There was also what UKEF called its “largest limited recourse project financing” that it has ever supported – around £475 million so going to support the build of petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia by a UK construction firm.

UKEF’s big favourite: Russian coal

Since 2010 there has been six instances of financial support pledged to Russia by UKEF, totalling around £430 million. This includes hefty support for Russian coal projects, financial backing for state-owned gas giant Gazprom to receive engineering equipment from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, and expertise and software to other fossil fuels projects.

Around £67 million of the UKEF backing for Russian fossil fuel developments has even gone to US-based Joy Mining, which has a manufacturing arm in the UK. The money has supported the export of mining equipment to Siberian Coal & Energy Co (known as SUEK) and Southern Kuzbass Coal Co OAO.

SUEK is the largest coal producing company in Russia and is one of the companies that the UK imports its coal from – roughly 30% of Russian coal imports to the UK. A Greenpeace investigation found the UK spends nearly a billion pounds each year importing coal from Russia.

SUEK’s chairman Andrew Melnichenko has connections to the the UK government, the investigation found. His long-standing advisor George Cardona, is a former special advisor to Geoffrey Howe.

The Energydesk analysis comes after reports that the German government will give financial support for the export of coal-fired power-plants by the country’s manufacturers. Late last year French President Francois Hollande announced that France will stop public export credits for coal projects in developing countries.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that the UK was still giving close to £1.2 billion annually to support exploration for oil, coal and gas. That includes both national subsidies (including tax breaks for North Sea oil exploration), and some $663 million (£425m) per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

But as reported in The Ecologist, those figures related to 2012. The new figures for UKEF support for fossil fuels in 2013 / 2014 are certain to push that total to a new record.

 

 

This article was originally published on the Greenpeace Energydesk blog. This version has been edited by The Ecologist.

 




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UK’s soaraway financial support to foreign fossil fuels Updated for 2026

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The UK government financial support to fossil fuel industries abroad has soared to over £1 billion a year under the Coalition, according to an analysis by Greenpeace Energydesk.

The total support for fossil fuel industries amounts to £1.76bn-worth of Export Credit Guarantees between 2010-2014, underwritten by taxpayer’s money.

And of that, almost £1.1bn was handed out in the last financial year, 2013 / 2014, more than ten times up on two years previously.

This is despite PM David Cameron recently publicly decrying fossil fuel subsidies, and the financial backing breaks a promise set out in the coalition government’s manifesto.

David Cameron denounced “economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers” at the Ban Ki Moon climate summit in September.

The coalition manifesto stated the new government would use Export Credit Guarantees for “innovative and green technologies, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

UKEF’s fossil fuel support hits new heights

UK Export Finance Agency (UKEF) is authorised by the government to decide what to financially back and their main instrument is the Export Credit Guarantee. These are designed to minimise the risk of making deals abroad for UK exporters.

In practice this means UKEF can work with banks to partially underwrite bonds that are a sort of insurance policy on the contract – and expected by the overseas buyer to be provided by the exporter. This supports the deal by releasing the working capital paid by the overseas buyer to the exporter, which can be used instead of placing it with the bank.

UKEF also provides insurance for UK exporters to protect against non-payment or other issues that commercial insurance won’t provide, as well as sometimes lending money to the buyer of the UK export so that they can pay them directly.

In the four years since the coalition government came into power in 2010, UKEF has announced significant support for a range of overseas fossil fuel projects – from backing for coal mining in Russia to oil and gas exploration in Brazil.

Last financial year was a particularly big one in terms of financial backing for fossil fuel projects, with over £380 million going to Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras – which also happens to be embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal.

This was as part of a US$1 billion – around £660 million at current rates – line of credit signed with the firm in 2012. The deal involves UK drilling services for oil and gas exploration in Brazil, and presumably offshore exploration, too, since one of the UK firms specialises in subsea engineering.

There was also what UKEF called its “largest limited recourse project financing” that it has ever supported – around £475 million so going to support the build of petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia by a UK construction firm.

UKEF’s big favourite: Russian coal

Since 2010 there has been six instances of financial support pledged to Russia by UKEF, totalling around £430 million. This includes hefty support for Russian coal projects, financial backing for state-owned gas giant Gazprom to receive engineering equipment from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, and expertise and software to other fossil fuels projects.

Around £67 million of the UKEF backing for Russian fossil fuel developments has even gone to US-based Joy Mining, which has a manufacturing arm in the UK. The money has supported the export of mining equipment to Siberian Coal & Energy Co (known as SUEK) and Southern Kuzbass Coal Co OAO.

SUEK is the largest coal producing company in Russia and is one of the companies that the UK imports its coal from – roughly 30% of Russian coal imports to the UK. A Greenpeace investigation found the UK spends nearly a billion pounds each year importing coal from Russia.

SUEK’s chairman Andrew Melnichenko has connections to the the UK government, the investigation found. His long-standing advisor George Cardona, is a former special advisor to Geoffrey Howe.

The Energydesk analysis comes after reports that the German government will give financial support for the export of coal-fired power-plants by the country’s manufacturers. Late last year French President Francois Hollande announced that France will stop public export credits for coal projects in developing countries.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that the UK was still giving close to £1.2 billion annually to support exploration for oil, coal and gas. That includes both national subsidies (including tax breaks for North Sea oil exploration), and some $663 million (£425m) per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

But as reported in The Ecologist, those figures related to 2012. The new figures for UKEF support for fossil fuels in 2013 / 2014 are certain to push that total to a new record.

 

 

This article was originally published on the Greenpeace Energydesk blog. This version has been edited by The Ecologist.

 




388811

UK’s soaraway financial support to foreign fossil fuels Updated for 2026

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The UK government financial support to fossil fuel industries abroad has soared to over £1 billion a year under the Coalition, according to an analysis by Greenpeace Energydesk.

The total support for fossil fuel industries amounts to £1.76bn-worth of Export Credit Guarantees between 2010-2014, underwritten by taxpayer’s money.

And of that, almost £1.1bn was handed out in the last financial year, 2013 / 2014, more than ten times up on two years previously.

This is despite PM David Cameron recently publicly decrying fossil fuel subsidies, and the financial backing breaks a promise set out in the coalition government’s manifesto.

David Cameron denounced “economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers” at the Ban Ki Moon climate summit in September.

The coalition manifesto stated the new government would use Export Credit Guarantees for “innovative and green technologies, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

UKEF’s fossil fuel support hits new heights

UK Export Finance Agency (UKEF) is authorised by the government to decide what to financially back and their main instrument is the Export Credit Guarantee. These are designed to minimise the risk of making deals abroad for UK exporters.

In practice this means UKEF can work with banks to partially underwrite bonds that are a sort of insurance policy on the contract – and expected by the overseas buyer to be provided by the exporter. This supports the deal by releasing the working capital paid by the overseas buyer to the exporter, which can be used instead of placing it with the bank.

UKEF also provides insurance for UK exporters to protect against non-payment or other issues that commercial insurance won’t provide, as well as sometimes lending money to the buyer of the UK export so that they can pay them directly.

In the four years since the coalition government came into power in 2010, UKEF has announced significant support for a range of overseas fossil fuel projects – from backing for coal mining in Russia to oil and gas exploration in Brazil.

Last financial year was a particularly big one in terms of financial backing for fossil fuel projects, with over £380 million going to Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras – which also happens to be embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal.

This was as part of a US$1 billion – around £660 million at current rates – line of credit signed with the firm in 2012. The deal involves UK drilling services for oil and gas exploration in Brazil, and presumably offshore exploration, too, since one of the UK firms specialises in subsea engineering.

There was also what UKEF called its “largest limited recourse project financing” that it has ever supported – around £475 million so going to support the build of petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia by a UK construction firm.

UKEF’s big favourite: Russian coal

Since 2010 there has been six instances of financial support pledged to Russia by UKEF, totalling around £430 million. This includes hefty support for Russian coal projects, financial backing for state-owned gas giant Gazprom to receive engineering equipment from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, and expertise and software to other fossil fuels projects.

Around £67 million of the UKEF backing for Russian fossil fuel developments has even gone to US-based Joy Mining, which has a manufacturing arm in the UK. The money has supported the export of mining equipment to Siberian Coal & Energy Co (known as SUEK) and Southern Kuzbass Coal Co OAO.

SUEK is the largest coal producing company in Russia and is one of the companies that the UK imports its coal from – roughly 30% of Russian coal imports to the UK. A Greenpeace investigation found the UK spends nearly a billion pounds each year importing coal from Russia.

SUEK’s chairman Andrew Melnichenko has connections to the the UK government, the investigation found. His long-standing advisor George Cardona, is a former special advisor to Geoffrey Howe.

The Energydesk analysis comes after reports that the German government will give financial support for the export of coal-fired power-plants by the country’s manufacturers. Late last year French President Francois Hollande announced that France will stop public export credits for coal projects in developing countries.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that the UK was still giving close to £1.2 billion annually to support exploration for oil, coal and gas. That includes both national subsidies (including tax breaks for North Sea oil exploration), and some $663 million (£425m) per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

But as reported in The Ecologist, those figures related to 2012. The new figures for UKEF support for fossil fuels in 2013 / 2014 are certain to push that total to a new record.

 

 

This article was originally published on the Greenpeace Energydesk blog. This version has been edited by The Ecologist.

 




388811

UK’s soaraway financial support to foreign fossil fuels Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The UK government financial support to fossil fuel industries abroad has soared to over £1 billion a year under the Coalition, according to an analysis by Greenpeace Energydesk.

The total support for fossil fuel industries amounts to £1.76bn-worth of Export Credit Guarantees between 2010-2014, underwritten by taxpayer’s money.

And of that, almost £1.1bn was handed out in the last financial year, 2013 / 2014, more than ten times up on two years previously.

This is despite PM David Cameron recently publicly decrying fossil fuel subsidies, and the financial backing breaks a promise set out in the coalition government’s manifesto.

David Cameron denounced “economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers” at the Ban Ki Moon climate summit in September.

The coalition manifesto stated the new government would use Export Credit Guarantees for “innovative and green technologies, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

UKEF’s fossil fuel support hits new heights

UK Export Finance Agency (UKEF) is authorised by the government to decide what to financially back and their main instrument is the Export Credit Guarantee. These are designed to minimise the risk of making deals abroad for UK exporters.

In practice this means UKEF can work with banks to partially underwrite bonds that are a sort of insurance policy on the contract – and expected by the overseas buyer to be provided by the exporter. This supports the deal by releasing the working capital paid by the overseas buyer to the exporter, which can be used instead of placing it with the bank.

UKEF also provides insurance for UK exporters to protect against non-payment or other issues that commercial insurance won’t provide, as well as sometimes lending money to the buyer of the UK export so that they can pay them directly.

In the four years since the coalition government came into power in 2010, UKEF has announced significant support for a range of overseas fossil fuel projects – from backing for coal mining in Russia to oil and gas exploration in Brazil.

Last financial year was a particularly big one in terms of financial backing for fossil fuel projects, with over £380 million going to Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras – which also happens to be embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal.

This was as part of a US$1 billion – around £660 million at current rates – line of credit signed with the firm in 2012. The deal involves UK drilling services for oil and gas exploration in Brazil, and presumably offshore exploration, too, since one of the UK firms specialises in subsea engineering.

There was also what UKEF called its “largest limited recourse project financing” that it has ever supported – around £475 million so going to support the build of petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia by a UK construction firm.

UKEF’s big favourite: Russian coal

Since 2010 there has been six instances of financial support pledged to Russia by UKEF, totalling around £430 million. This includes hefty support for Russian coal projects, financial backing for state-owned gas giant Gazprom to receive engineering equipment from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, and expertise and software to other fossil fuels projects.

Around £67 million of the UKEF backing for Russian fossil fuel developments has even gone to US-based Joy Mining, which has a manufacturing arm in the UK. The money has supported the export of mining equipment to Siberian Coal & Energy Co (known as SUEK) and Southern Kuzbass Coal Co OAO.

SUEK is the largest coal producing company in Russia and is one of the companies that the UK imports its coal from – roughly 30% of Russian coal imports to the UK. A Greenpeace investigation found the UK spends nearly a billion pounds each year importing coal from Russia.

SUEK’s chairman Andrew Melnichenko has connections to the the UK government, the investigation found. His long-standing advisor George Cardona, is a former special advisor to Geoffrey Howe.

The Energydesk analysis comes after reports that the German government will give financial support for the export of coal-fired power-plants by the country’s manufacturers. Late last year French President Francois Hollande announced that France will stop public export credits for coal projects in developing countries.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that the UK was still giving close to £1.2 billion annually to support exploration for oil, coal and gas. That includes both national subsidies (including tax breaks for North Sea oil exploration), and some $663 million (£425m) per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

But as reported in The Ecologist, those figures related to 2012. The new figures for UKEF support for fossil fuels in 2013 / 2014 are certain to push that total to a new record.

 

 

This article was originally published on the Greenpeace Energydesk blog. This version has been edited by The Ecologist.

 




388811

UK’s soaraway financial support to foreign fossil fuels Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The UK government financial support to fossil fuel industries abroad has soared to over £1 billion a year under the Coalition, according to an analysis by Greenpeace Energydesk.

The total support for fossil fuel industries amounts to £1.76bn-worth of Export Credit Guarantees between 2010-2014, underwritten by taxpayer’s money.

And of that, almost £1.1bn was handed out in the last financial year, 2013 / 2014, more than ten times up on two years previously.

This is despite PM David Cameron recently publicly decrying fossil fuel subsidies, and the financial backing breaks a promise set out in the coalition government’s manifesto.

David Cameron denounced “economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers” at the Ban Ki Moon climate summit in September.

The coalition manifesto stated the new government would use Export Credit Guarantees for “innovative and green technologies, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

UKEF’s fossil fuel support hits new heights

UK Export Finance Agency (UKEF) is authorised by the government to decide what to financially back and their main instrument is the Export Credit Guarantee. These are designed to minimise the risk of making deals abroad for UK exporters.

In practice this means UKEF can work with banks to partially underwrite bonds that are a sort of insurance policy on the contract – and expected by the overseas buyer to be provided by the exporter. This supports the deal by releasing the working capital paid by the overseas buyer to the exporter, which can be used instead of placing it with the bank.

UKEF also provides insurance for UK exporters to protect against non-payment or other issues that commercial insurance won’t provide, as well as sometimes lending money to the buyer of the UK export so that they can pay them directly.

In the four years since the coalition government came into power in 2010, UKEF has announced significant support for a range of overseas fossil fuel projects – from backing for coal mining in Russia to oil and gas exploration in Brazil.

Last financial year was a particularly big one in terms of financial backing for fossil fuel projects, with over £380 million going to Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras – which also happens to be embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal.

This was as part of a US$1 billion – around £660 million at current rates – line of credit signed with the firm in 2012. The deal involves UK drilling services for oil and gas exploration in Brazil, and presumably offshore exploration, too, since one of the UK firms specialises in subsea engineering.

There was also what UKEF called its “largest limited recourse project financing” that it has ever supported – around £475 million so going to support the build of petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia by a UK construction firm.

UKEF’s big favourite: Russian coal

Since 2010 there has been six instances of financial support pledged to Russia by UKEF, totalling around £430 million. This includes hefty support for Russian coal projects, financial backing for state-owned gas giant Gazprom to receive engineering equipment from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, and expertise and software to other fossil fuels projects.

Around £67 million of the UKEF backing for Russian fossil fuel developments has even gone to US-based Joy Mining, which has a manufacturing arm in the UK. The money has supported the export of mining equipment to Siberian Coal & Energy Co (known as SUEK) and Southern Kuzbass Coal Co OAO.

SUEK is the largest coal producing company in Russia and is one of the companies that the UK imports its coal from – roughly 30% of Russian coal imports to the UK. A Greenpeace investigation found the UK spends nearly a billion pounds each year importing coal from Russia.

SUEK’s chairman Andrew Melnichenko has connections to the the UK government, the investigation found. His long-standing advisor George Cardona, is a former special advisor to Geoffrey Howe.

The Energydesk analysis comes after reports that the German government will give financial support for the export of coal-fired power-plants by the country’s manufacturers. Late last year French President Francois Hollande announced that France will stop public export credits for coal projects in developing countries.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that the UK was still giving close to £1.2 billion annually to support exploration for oil, coal and gas. That includes both national subsidies (including tax breaks for North Sea oil exploration), and some $663 million (£425m) per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

But as reported in The Ecologist, those figures related to 2012. The new figures for UKEF support for fossil fuels in 2013 / 2014 are certain to push that total to a new record.

 

 

This article was originally published on the Greenpeace Energydesk blog. This version has been edited by The Ecologist.

 




388811

UK’s soaraway financial support to foreign fossil fuels Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The UK government financial support to fossil fuel industries abroad has soared to over £1 billion a year under the Coalition, according to an analysis by Greenpeace Energydesk.

The total support for fossil fuel industries amounts to £1.76bn-worth of Export Credit Guarantees between 2010-2014, underwritten by taxpayer’s money.

And of that, almost £1.1bn was handed out in the last financial year, 2013 / 2014, more than ten times up on two years previously.

This is despite PM David Cameron recently publicly decrying fossil fuel subsidies, and the financial backing breaks a promise set out in the coalition government’s manifesto.

David Cameron denounced “economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers” at the Ban Ki Moon climate summit in September.

The coalition manifesto stated the new government would use Export Credit Guarantees for “innovative and green technologies, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

UKEF’s fossil fuel support hits new heights

UK Export Finance Agency (UKEF) is authorised by the government to decide what to financially back and their main instrument is the Export Credit Guarantee. These are designed to minimise the risk of making deals abroad for UK exporters.

In practice this means UKEF can work with banks to partially underwrite bonds that are a sort of insurance policy on the contract – and expected by the overseas buyer to be provided by the exporter. This supports the deal by releasing the working capital paid by the overseas buyer to the exporter, which can be used instead of placing it with the bank.

UKEF also provides insurance for UK exporters to protect against non-payment or other issues that commercial insurance won’t provide, as well as sometimes lending money to the buyer of the UK export so that they can pay them directly.

In the four years since the coalition government came into power in 2010, UKEF has announced significant support for a range of overseas fossil fuel projects – from backing for coal mining in Russia to oil and gas exploration in Brazil.

Last financial year was a particularly big one in terms of financial backing for fossil fuel projects, with over £380 million going to Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras – which also happens to be embroiled in an ongoing corruption scandal.

This was as part of a US$1 billion – around £660 million at current rates – line of credit signed with the firm in 2012. The deal involves UK drilling services for oil and gas exploration in Brazil, and presumably offshore exploration, too, since one of the UK firms specialises in subsea engineering.

There was also what UKEF called its “largest limited recourse project financing” that it has ever supported – around £475 million so going to support the build of petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia by a UK construction firm.

UKEF’s big favourite: Russian coal

Since 2010 there has been six instances of financial support pledged to Russia by UKEF, totalling around £430 million. This includes hefty support for Russian coal projects, financial backing for state-owned gas giant Gazprom to receive engineering equipment from Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, and expertise and software to other fossil fuels projects.

Around £67 million of the UKEF backing for Russian fossil fuel developments has even gone to US-based Joy Mining, which has a manufacturing arm in the UK. The money has supported the export of mining equipment to Siberian Coal & Energy Co (known as SUEK) and Southern Kuzbass Coal Co OAO.

SUEK is the largest coal producing company in Russia and is one of the companies that the UK imports its coal from – roughly 30% of Russian coal imports to the UK. A Greenpeace investigation found the UK spends nearly a billion pounds each year importing coal from Russia.

SUEK’s chairman Andrew Melnichenko has connections to the the UK government, the investigation found. His long-standing advisor George Cardona, is a former special advisor to Geoffrey Howe.

The Energydesk analysis comes after reports that the German government will give financial support for the export of coal-fired power-plants by the country’s manufacturers. Late last year French President Francois Hollande announced that France will stop public export credits for coal projects in developing countries.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that the UK was still giving close to £1.2 billion annually to support exploration for oil, coal and gas. That includes both national subsidies (including tax breaks for North Sea oil exploration), and some $663 million (£425m) per year in public finance for overseas exploration including in Siberia in Russia, Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

But as reported in The Ecologist, those figures related to 2012. The new figures for UKEF support for fossil fuels in 2013 / 2014 are certain to push that total to a new record.

 

 

This article was originally published on the Greenpeace Energydesk blog. This version has been edited by The Ecologist.

 




388811