American President Joe Biden is expected to lead the 27th conference of parties (COP27) in Egypt from November 6. The U.S government has been accused of facilitating fossil fuel projects in the continent where it has pumped more than $9bn (£7.7bn) into oil and gas projects.
In 2015, the then President Barrack Obama pledged, under Paris climate agreement, to restrain from global heating. In the same agreement, U.S committed that it would spend $682m on clean energy.
A close look at the available data shows that two-thirds of all the money the U.S has committed globally to fossil fuels in this time has been directed into Africa.
Despite calling for an immediate stop of funding in “carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy projects globally”, the Biden administration has done little to comply with its own directive.
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Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager at Friends of the Earth say that it is “absurd” that wealthy oil companies are supported by US taxpayers. “I was thrilled with the promises from the Biden administration but over the last two years it’s been a slow walk back to the point where you couldn’t tell the difference between Biden and [Donald] Trump on overseas fossil fuel finance…It’s been frustrating and tiresome to see so many opportunities lost to transition away from fossil fuels,” she said.
The main financer of global energy projects, Export-Import Bank of the United States (Exim), has recently been advocating for use of renewables, however, according to DeAngelis, the agency “has shown no intention of ceasing fossil fuel funding. “They’ve said to us they will approve fossil fuels in Africa and beyond and not to get bogged down on that because they are doing renewables too,” she said.
