"ERA/FoEN wants AfDB, finance institutions to stop funding fossil fuel projects", 25 Dec 2017

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has asked the African Development Bank (AfDB) and other financial institutions to stop funding fossil fuel projects to achieve a cleaner environment. It argued that if the institutions that currently deploy huge resources to upstream oil and gas projects stop doing so, countries would be compelled to transit from fossil fuels to renewable energy. ERA/FoEN recommendation is coming on the heels of the World Bank’s announcement at the One Planet Summit that it would not finance such projects beyond 2019...ERA/FoEN Executive Director, Godwin Uyi Ojo said: “In as much as we want to see the World Bank Group go beyond words and follow through with concrete actions, other financial institutions must divest from fossil fuel projects.” He noted that sustained funding from the financial institutions to projects in the upstream oil and gas sector have contributed largely in slowing progress towards the Paris Agreement and other initiatives that would make the world a cleaner and safer place to live in...Ojo asserted that aside cutting emissions from source as demanded by the vulnerable and most impacted nations in Africa, the only other way to compel a transition to renewables is the defunding of projects that contribute to the problem. “By the World Bank’s announcement, there is a glimmer of hope in the horizon. Unequivocally, the AfBD and other institutions have been shown the way. We urge them to follow this step before it is too late,” he added.