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Title: Global call to end oil aid
Author: Graham Saul
Category: Resource Extraction
Date: 6/20/2007
Source: Oil Change International
Source Website: www.priceofoil.org
Summary & Comment: La version française suit. Development, environment, human rights, community, and indigenous rights groups call on wealthy countries and international institutions to stop using foreign assistance and public resources to subsidize the activities of international oil companies. Such subsidies fuel overconsumption in wealthy countries, benefit an already highly profitable and well-established industry, and exacerbate many of the most urgent problems facing humanity today. DN
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1. Global call to end oil aid
2. La version française
Note:
On behalf of the 50 organizations from over 30 countries listed below, we are writing to ask you to endorse and widely distribute this statement calling on wealthy countries to stop using foreign assistance to subsidize international oil companies.
Please send your organizational endorsement, including name of organization and name of contact person, to:
Graham Saul at:
graham@priceofoil.org
by July 9, 2007.
The statement is currently available in French, Spanish, English, Russian and German. We will post the statement on endoilaid.org and make it available for organizations around the world to use in their work related to fossil fuel subsidies and the social and environmental impacts of oil projects.
Thanks,
Graham Saul
Oil Change International
graham@priceofoil.org
Mail to: graham@priceofoil.org
Web: www.priceofoil.org ; http://www.priceofoil.org
Tel: 202-518-9029
Cell: 613-558-3368
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1. Global call to end oil aid
We, the undersigned representatives of development, environment, human rights, community, and indigenous rights groups, are calling on wealthy countries and international institutions to stop using foreign assistance and other public resources to subsidize the activities of international oil companies. These subsidies fuel overconsumption in wealthy countries, benefit an already highly profitable and well-established industry, and exacerbate many of the most urgent problems facing humanity today. It is time to end oil aid.
Money that is supposed to be going to help people in impoverished countries is instead being used to subsidize the oil industry. This oil aid is increasing conflict and poverty in many parts of the world and fueling oil dependence and global warming. The World Bank's own Extractive Industries Review called in late-2003 for an end to oil aid when it recommended that:
"The World Bank Group should phase out investments in oil production by 2008
and devote its scarce resources to investments in renewable energy resource
development...".
Tragically, the World Bank chose to ignore this recommendation and multilateral development banks continue to use public money to subsidize oil companies. The World Bank Group alone has provided more than $5 billion to oil extraction projects since 1992, while devoting only a small fraction of its energy budget to clean, renewable energy sources. Moreover, in the oil sector, over 80 percent of the World Bank's approved finance goes to projects that export to the North.^ These projects are not about alleviating energy poverty - they're about corporate welfare for oil companies and feeding oil addiction in wealthy countries.
Export credit agencies are also providing subsidies worth billions of dollars a year to oil and gas extraction projects and pipelines. Exxon Mobil alone has received more than a billion dollars in support from export credit agencies since 1995 and companies such as Shell, Halliburton, BP and Chevron, Total and Repsol have received hundreds of millions from these publicly owned institutions.
Oil companies are benefiting from this "oil aid" at the same time that they register record profits. As independent research has increasingly indicated, international oil companies are hindering, not promoting, development in poor countries, fueling conflict and sinking oil-producing countries deeper into poverty and economic inequality. Continued oil dependence has a disproportionate impact on the world's poorest countries at a time of high oil prices, thereby undermining the benefits of debt cancellation and harming the very countries that international institutions like the World Bank should be helping.
Due to these and many other problems, it has long been clear that subsidizing oil companies is not an effective or justifiable way to spend limited development assistance and other public money, but global warming has brought the crisis associated with our addiction to oil into focus like never before. Greenhouse gas emissions from wealthy countries over the past century are largely responsible for the growing problem of climate change, but it is the world's most impoverished countries that will bear a disproportionate burden in the coming decades. By using aid and other public money to subsidize the expansion of oil production, wealthy countries and international institutions are actively exacerbating the problem of global climate change without addressing the core issue of overcoming energy poverty.
Ending oil aid and supporting truly sustainable energy alternatives would be an important step in addressing energy poverty and catalyzing a new energy future. With this in mind, we are calling for an end to international assistance to oil companies.
Organizational endorsements and contact people:
1. International:
African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, based in Zimbabwe, Charles Mutasa
Central and Eastern Europe Bankwatch Network, based in the Czech Republic, Petr Hlobil
Friends of the Earth Europe, based in Belgium, Paul de Clerck
Friends of the Earth International, based in the Netherlands, Janneke Bruil
Greenpeace southeast Asia, Shailendra Yashwant
Jubilee South, based in Philippines, Lidy Nacpil
Oil Change International, based in the U.S.A, Steve Kretzmann or Graham Saul
Oil Watch Sudamerica, based in Ecuador, Ivonne Yanez
2. National
Austria: GLOBAL 2000, Silva Herrmann
Azerbaijan: Oil Workers Rights Protection Public Union, Sona Taghiyeva
Himayadar Humanitarian Organization, Himayat Rizvanqizi
Bangladesh: Banglapraxis, Zakir Kibria
Belgium: FERN - Belgium/UK, Judith Neyer
Brazil: Coletivo Alternativa Verde - CAVE, Cesar Augusto Guimarães Pereira*
Cameroon: Global Village Cameroon, Wirsiy Emmanuel Binyuy
Canada: Halifax Initiative, Fraser Reilly-King; Sustainable Scale Project, Jack Santa-Barbara
France: Amis de la Terre France, Gwenael Wasse Helio International, Laura Williamson
Germany: erlassjahr.de, Jurgen Kaiser Urgewald, Regine Richter World Ecology, Economy and Development (WEED), Daniela Setton
Ghana: Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa, Yakubu Zakaria
Indonesia: Yayasan Pelangi Indonesia, Nyoman Iswarayoga
Italy: Campaign to Reform the World Bank, Antonio Tricarico or Elena Gerebizza
Japan: Friends of the Earth Japan, Naomi Kanzaki
Kazakhstan: Ecological Society Green Salvation, Sergey Solyanik
Kenya: Solidarity Network Africa, Soren Ambrose
Malawi: Citizens For Justice (CFJ) Malawi, Reinford Mwangonde
Nigeria: Community Research and Development Centre (CREDC), Etiosa Uyigue Centre for Research and Action on Developing Locales (CRADLE), Richard Ingwe Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Nnimmo Bassey
Poland: Polish Green Network, Anna Roggenbuck
Russia: Sakhalin Environment Watch, Dimitry Lisitsyn
Senegal: African Forum on Alternatives, Demba Moussa Dembele
South Africa: South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), Desmond D'Sa groundWork, Bobby Peek
South Korea: Citizens' Movement for Environmental Justice, Su Jin Yim
Spain: Deuda en la Globalización (Catalonia, Spanish State), Monica Vargas
Switzerland: Berne Declaration, Andres Missbach Alliance Sud, Bruno Gurtner
United Kingdom: Bretton Woods Project, Lucy Baker Corner House, Larry Lohmann New Economics Foundation, Andrew Simms Platform, Mika Minio Paluello
United States of America: Amazon Watch, Maria Lya Ramos Bank Information Center, Bruce Jenkins Friends of the Earth U.S., David Waskow Jubilee USA, Neil Watkins 50 Years is Enough: US Network for Global Economic Justice, Sameer Dossani
Uzbekistan: Center "Armon", Dilbar Zaynutdinova
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