The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the financial arm of the European Union as well as the largest multilateral lender globally – with EUR 68bn spent in 2019.
In 2019, the EIB President committed to align with the Paris Agreement by end 2020 and to turn the EIB into the ‘EU Climate Bank’.
Despite its growing role as a leader on climate finance, the EIB is still providing considerable support to carbon-intensive sectors, thus undermining its progress on climate action elsewhere. Simply in 2017 and 2018, the bank has – for example – provided over EUR 2 billion in loans for the expansion of airports and over EUR 3.1 billion in motorways and expressways.
In this context, Counter Balance aims at coordinating an NGO campaign with the objective to make the EIB the ‘EU Climate Bank’ by aligning its operations with the objectives of the Paris Agreement by the end of 2020.
The impact of the bank is considerable and close guidance and oversight are crucial to make sure the money is invested in line with the EU environmental and climate objectives to decarbonize the European economy by 2050. Re-directed towards climate-proof and transformative projects, these injections of public money could make a massive difference in helping the European Union achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement and its Green Deal.