Italy is the sixth largest financier of fossil fuels in the world

The financing in energy projects that Italy directs abroad is 90% on fossil fuels.New report by Legambiente and ReCommon.

Between 2019 and 2021, Italy provided $2.8 billion per year to finance fossil fuels.A huge figure that places our country in sixth place in the world rankings, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia, in eighth and ninth place respectively.

On the contrary, only 3.5 percent of our country's international financing in terms of energy it goes to renewables.That's one thing to say new research published by Oil change international and Friends of the Earth USA, in which Legambiente and ReCommon collaborated.

Foreign financing of fossil fuels passes through Sace

The study also shows that Italy is late in implementing the commitment adopted at COP26 in Glasgow put an end to public funding for international fossil fuel projects by 2022.

The report showed that Italian funding for the most polluting sources has largely flowed through the Italian export credit agency, the Foreign Trade Insurance Services (Sace).Sace has provided support to many controversial projects, including a project by gas extraction in Mozambique, which is exacerbating an internal conflict in the African country that has caused thousands of deaths.Sace also has supported fossil fuels in Russia in the seven years since the annexation of Crimea, actions that helped Russia enrich itself before invading Ukraine.

Only 3.5 percent of financing for renewables

The new report reveals that between 2019 and 2021 the G20 countries and the main multilateral development banks (supranational institutions created by states that are also shareholders) financed an annual average of $56 billion for oil, gas and coal projects, surpassing support for renewable energy, which instead received an annual average of $29 billion over the same period.

In the Italian case, out of a total amount of 3.2 billion dollars invested in energy financing between 2019 and 2022, only 112 million went to support clean energy projects.This means that a percentage that is close to 90 percent went to fossil fuels and 3.5 percent went to renewable sources (while the remaining part, i.e. 6.7 percent, went to other undefined items).

Italy wants to weaken the commitment made at Cop26

To Italy less than two months left to meet the end-of-year deadline of its commitment to end international public finance for fossil fuels.Other countries, those that together with Italy have joined the "Export finance for future" group, including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, they have already published new policies to implement the commitment.

Instead Italy, as you know Reuters, he intends to weaken commitment to stop credit support for fossil fuel projects.The "Export finance for future" countries are in fact working on a common draft that they will discuss at the next COP scheduled for Egypt and, according to the international news agency, there is only one country that is opposed to this document .It seems that country it's Italy.

The IPCC, in his latest report, highlighted that if public finances were addressed towards mitigation policies, these would allow us to reduce CO2 emissions and accelerate the ecological transition.Supporting financing for fossil fuel projects abroad goes in the opposite direction.Italy must not take this path.