A group of 34 NGOs wrote to European Investment Bank (EIB) President Werner Hoyer, on Wednesday 24 June, urging the EIB to meet its climate commitments, ten days after the bank published a document on its roadmap to become the EU's climate bank by the end of the year (see EUROPE 12346/12).
“We are deeply disappointed with the recently published ‘position paper’ detailing several steps the EIB plans to take under this Climate Roadmap”, the NGOs wrote.
In their view, the measures detailed in this document do not align EIB operations with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
The signatories point in particular to the fact that the EIB does not foresee any new restrictions on carbon-intensive activities, especially in the transport sector, and the absence of a binding condition to prevent polluting companies from receiving blank cheques in a post-Covid-19 recovery context.
“As it stands, the EIB could continue financing new motorways and new airports”, they criticise.
In addition, they call on the institution to strengthen its energy policy, adopted in November 2019, by ceasing all funding for gas projects (see EUROPE 12406/7).
See the NGO letter and the EIB document: https://bit.ly/3dudldC and https://bit.ly/2YuXCGV (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)