Paul Waidelich
pwaidelich.bsky.social
Paul Waidelich
@pwaidelich.bsky.social
Climate and energy economist | Postdoc at ETH Zurich's Energy and Technology Policy Group
Huge thanks to UNIL’s Philipp Censkowsky, who led this work, to co-authors Bjarne Steffen (@ethzurich.bsky.social) & Igor Shishlov (HEC Paris, Perspectives), and to TXF Limited for granting us data access.

The paper is open-access, have a look and let us know what you think!

(7/7)
January 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Despite post-Glasgow promises to end overseas fossil financing, massive ECA deals in oil & gas keep surfacing.

➡️We need stronger, binding rules—beyond the OECD ban on unabated coal—to phase out fossil financing while addressing the needs of fossil fuel-dependent developing countries

(6/7)
January 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Caveats: We likely underestimate total fossil finance by ECAs, as some heavyweights (like Canada) are underrepresented in our sample.

That lack of transparency hampers accountability and highlights the need to open existing export finance databases (e.g., at the OECD) to research/the public

(5/7)
January 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
However, greening ECAs’ energy finance has an unintended side effect: Developing countries are losing out.

ECA support increasingly shifts toward wealthier countries in the same regions where RE projects are more likely located—leaving those with the greatest financing needs behind ⚠️

(4/7)
January 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
National disparities loom large. Overall, Europe’s Export Finance for Future (E3F) coalition is “greening” their ECA energy finance faster and growing in relative importance, driving the trend toward renewables.

Yet many countries, like Italy or Korea, still mainly support oil & gas projects

(3/7)
January 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
We examined 900+ ECA-backed deals in 31 countries btw 2013–2023 and saw a big leap in renewables—up to ~40% from under 10% just a decade ago! 📈

Great news? Partly. Because ECAs have shunned coal but are still committing vast sums for oil & gas projects

(2/7)
January 29, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Link to the Munich Re text: www.munichre.com/en/company/m...

Also worth noting that the EM-DAT data used in my chart have known coverage issues and for several events, damages come out a bit lower than Munich Re's numbers
Climate change is showing its claws: The world is getting hotter, resulting in severe hurricanes, thunderstorms and floods | Munich Re
Worldwide, natural disasters caused losses of US$ 320bn in 2024 (2023, adjusted for inflation: US$ 268bn), of which around US$ 140bn (US$ 106bn) were insured. The overall losses and, even more so, the...
www.munichre.com
January 9, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Absolutely!

But more expensive than allowance prices in California, New Zealand, Korea, the RGGI and many others, as per the World Bank:
carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/compliance/p...

🤯
Price
This page contains information regarding the carbon price levels of carbon taxes and emissions trading systems.
carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org
November 15, 2024 at 9:38 AM