UK's "Greenest Gov Ever" Spent 300X More On Dirty Energy Projects Abroad Than On Clean
The UK government has broken a key pledge to support green energy abroad over “dirty” energy projects by spending more than three hundred times as much backing fossil fuel energy compared with clean energy projects via the government’s export credit agency.
In the coalition agreement, the Tories and Lib Dems promised in 2010 that UK Export Finance (UKEF), a small government department, would “become champions for British companies that develop and export innovative green technologies around the world, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil fuel energy production”.
But over the course of the parliament, the department has given financial support worth just £3.6m to green energy projects around the world, data released to the Guardian under freedom of information rules shows. By comparison, UKEF allocated £1.13bn to help fossil fuel energy operations in the same period, 314 times more. The support was in the form of loans, loan guarantees and other export credit support.
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Financing worth £528m went to companies working on oil exploration with Brazil’s Petrobras, whose boss recently quit over a corruption scandal, and a £330m loan was was awarded to Rolls Royce for a gas power project with Russia’s Gazprom. Companies working with coal miners in Russia were among the other fossil fuel schemes to benefit. A single deal accounts for most of the green energy support – a £3.2m bond support scheme for cables for an offshore windfarm in Germany. Other financial help includes £38,388 for companies working on a hydro project in Tanzania and £153,335 for a solar power scheme in Kuwait.
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http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/10/uk-spent-300-times-more-fossil-fuel-clean-energy-despite-green-pledge
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