Elizabeth Bast is the executive director of the advocacy group Oil Change International.
As world leaders gather in Baku to negotiate global climate finance, a last-chance opportunity for the Biden administration to cement a global win on climate is emerging.
This week, OECD governments are in Paris negotiating an agreement that could put an end to $41 billion in annual oil and gas export finance – and crucially, this deal would be immune to political reversals, even under the future Trump administration.
This would be an essential stepping stone towards helping unblock wider discussions on the trillions in grant-based climate finance rich countries owe to the Global South.
The proposed OECD agreement would be particularly powerful because of its binding nature. It could only be undone if all negotiating countries agreed to reverse course – making it effectively “Trump-proof”.
Make-or-break moment
For Biden, as outgoing President, this represents a final opportunity to fulfill his 2021 executive order promising to end international fossil fuel finance. The majority of OECD countries, including the EU, UK, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia, have already been championing a proposal to end oil and gas export finance and are ready to reach an agreement.
Biden’s actions this week will make-or-break this progress.
High-level EU officials have already reached out to the Administration asking that they make the final call to agree so that this proposal can cross the finish line. However, the power of the Biden administration is now critically needed to get key laggards, including South Korea and Turkey, over the line.
We’ve seen the power of US multilateral leadership on export finance work before. In 2015, the Obama administration successfully championed a policy at the OECD to end coal-fired power financing – a commitment the first Trump administration couldn’t undo.
Now, Biden has the chance to replicate this success with oil and gas, creating another permanent safeguard for climate progress.
Push to get public money out of fossil fuels
This potential agreement builds on an encouraging shift in international energy finance.
The Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP), launched at COP26 in Glasgow, has already demonstrated remarkable success. Its 41 signatories, including major fossil fuel financiers like Canada, Germany, and Norway, committed to ending their international public finance for fossil fuels. And most signatories have followed through, helping reduce international fossil fuel finance by up to two-thirds – approximately $15 billion annually.
Though these sums might seem small, this shift has an outsized impact. Government financial institutions shape energy markets by signaling government priorities.
Public-backed finance, often provided at below-market rates, decreases financial risks for private sector investors and makes projects much more likely to go forward. Indeed, 82% of the LNG buildout in the last decade had public backing from G20 government’s export credit agencies (ECAs).
Indonesian company Pertamina operates an oil refinery that received support from the US export credit agency last year. Photo: Paulus Daniel
The timing is critical: this is the Biden administration’s last chance to keep its international commitments to end international public finance for fossil fuels.
The International Energy Agency’s Net Zero roadmap shows that global electricity systems must be nearly fossil-fuel-free by 2040 to maintain a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C. No new investments in upstream gas projects or LNG infrastructure can be justified under this scenario.
Step towards an ambitious COP29 deal
This OECD agreement would also help solidify other wins for the COP29 talks in Baku, where countries must commit to delivering substantial climate finance, including support for a just transition away from fossil fuels.
Rich countries owe trillions in grant-based finance to the Global South for climate action. Developed countries claim that they do not have the money and that large sums of private finance leveraged through small amounts of public finance must cover mitigation finance needs, including for an energy transition.
But this makes Global South countries pay for a crisis they did not cause. The track record of this approach shows it fails to leverage the needed sums, deepens unsustainable debts and does not reach the countries and sectors that are most in need, such as public transit and transition support for fossil fuel-dependent workers and communities. This underscores grant-based finance is needed not just for loss and damage and adaptation, but also for a just energy transition.
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The world has plenty of money to pay for the climate action that is urgently needed for a livable planet. Just the 10 richest individuals have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion dollars.
Analysis by Oil Change International (OCI) shows that by ending fossil fuel handouts – including through reaching a deal at the OECD – making polluters pay and changing unfair global finance rules, countries can mobilize well over $5 trillion for climate action at home and abroad, as well as other public policies.
The opportunities to build a world with cleaner air, good quality jobs, comfortable housing, affordable energy bills and empowered communities are up for grabs.
According to the IPCC a fossil fuel phase-out is technically feasible and relatively low in cost. Solar and wind energy are already more affordable than fossil fuel alternatives in most parts of the world. They do not introduce further volatility through increased climate damages or fiscal instability and create a more secure energy system in a volatile age where fossil fuels are often controlled by dictators and autocrats.
The next days bring critical opportunities. Right now in Paris, Biden must support an OECD oil and gas export finance ban. In Baku, countries must adopt an ambitious new climate finance target. It’s time for governments to stop defending fossil fuel interests and fulfill their duty to protect people and the planet.
The post How Biden can score a $41 billion Trump-proof win for climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.
How Biden can score a $41-billion Trump-proof win for climate action
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight
The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash
To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.