IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-55981-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quantifying the shift of public export finance from fossil fuels to renewable energy

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Censkowsky

    (University of Lausanne (HEC Lausanne)
    Perspectives Climate Research gGmbH)

  • Paul Waidelich

    (ETH Zurich)

  • Igor Shishlov

    (Perspectives Climate Research gGmbH
    HEC Paris)

  • Bjarne Steffen

    (ETH Zurich)

Abstract

By providing guarantees and direct lending, public export credit agencies (ECAs) de-risk and thus enable energy projects worldwide. Despite their importance for global greenhouse gas emission pathways, a systematic assessment of ECAs’ role and financing patterns in the low-carbon energy transition is still needed. Using commercial transaction data, here we analyze 921 energy deals backed by ECAs from 31 OECD and non-OECD countries (excluding Canada) between 2013 and 2023. We find that while the share of renewables in global ECA energy commitments rose substantially between 2013 and 2023, ECAs remain heavily involved in the fossil fuel sector, with support varying substantially across technologies, value chain stages, and countries. Portfolio ‘greening’ is primarily driven by members of the E3F climate club, impacting deal financing structures and shifting finance flows towards high-income countries. Our results call for reconsidering ECA mandates and strengthening international climate-related cooperation in export finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Censkowsky & Paul Waidelich & Igor Shishlov & Bjarne Steffen, 2025. "Quantifying the shift of public export finance from fossil fuels to renewable energy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-55981-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-55981-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-55981-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-55981-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Willem Thorbecke, 2023. "Japanese Economic Performance after the Pandemic: A Sectoral Analysis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, May.
    2. Felipe Sanchez & Linus Linde, 2023. "Turning out the light: criteria for determining the sequencing of countries phasing out oil extraction and the just transition implications," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(9), pages 1182-1196, October.
    3. Kristen Hopewell, 2019. "How Rising Powers Create Governance Gaps: The Case of Export Credit and the Environment," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 19(1), pages 34-52, February.
    4. Yacob Mulugetta & Youba Sokona & Philipp A. Trotter & Samuel Fankhauser & Jessica Omukuti & Lucas Somavilla Croxatto & Bjarne Steffen & Meron Tesfamichael & Edo Abraham & Jean-Paul Adam & Lawrence Agb, 2022. "Africa needs context-relevant evidence to shape its clean energy future," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(11), pages 1015-1022, November.
    5. Thibault Briera & Julien Lefèvre, 2024. "Reducing the cost of capital through international climate finance to accelerate the renewable energy transition in developing countries," Post-Print hal-04824002, HAL.
    6. Kong, Bo & Gallagher, Kevin P., 2021. "The new coal champion of the world: The political economy of Chinese overseas development finance for coal-fired power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    7. Marion Jansen, 2022. "Managing the green transition: The role of the OECD export credit arrangement," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(4), pages 554-556, September.
    8. Lola Nacke & Vadim Vinichenko & Aleh Cherp & Avi Jakhmola & Jessica Jewell, 2024. "Compensating affected parties necessary for rapid coal phase-out but expensive if extended to major emitters," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    9. Maxfield Peterson & Christian Downie, 2024. "The international political economy of export credit agencies and the energy transition," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 978-994, May.
    10. Andreas Klasen & Jan Vassard, 2023. "The new OECD arrangement on export credits: Breakthrough or bad compromise?," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(5), pages 958-961, November.
    11. Briera, Thibault & Lefèvre, Julien, 2024. "Reducing the cost of capital through international climate finance to accelerate the renewable energy transition in developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    12. Garrett-Peltier, Heidi, 2017. "Green versus brown: Comparing the employment impacts of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and fossil fuels using an input-output model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 439-447.
    13. Diluiso, Francesca & Walk, Paula & Manych, Niccolò & Cerutti, Nicola & Chipiga, Vladislav & Workman, Annabelle & Ayas, Ceren & Cui, Ryna Yiyun & Cui, Diyang & Song, Kaihui & Banisch, Lucy A. & Moretti, 2021. "Coal transitions—part 1: a systematic map and review of case study learnings from regional, national, and local coal phase-out experiences," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 16(11).
    14. Kristen Hopewell, 2021. "Power transitions and global trade governance: The impact of a rising China on the export credit regime," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 634-652, July.
    15. Kate Dooley & Ceecee Holz & Sivan Kartha & Sonja Klinsky & J. Timmons Roberts & Henry Shue & Harald Winkler & Tom Athanasiou & Simon Caney & Elizabeth Cripps & Navroz K. Dubash & Galen Hall & Paul G. , 2021. "Ethical choices behind quantifications of fair contributions under the Paris Agreement," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(4), pages 300-305, April.
    16. J.-F. Mercure & H. Pollitt & J. E. Viñuales & N. R. Edwards & P. B. Holden & U. Chewpreecha & P. Salas & I. Sognnaes & A. Lam & F. Knobloch, 2018. "Macroeconomic impact of stranded fossil fuel assets," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(7), pages 588-593, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lou, Jiehong & Hu, Guangxiao & Shen, Xingchi & Cui, Ryna Yiyun, 2025. "Quantifying the economy-wide employment effects of coal-fired power plants: Two different cases China and the United States," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 377(PC).
    2. Guillermo MONTT & Kirsten S. WIEBE & Marek HARSDORFF & Moana SIMAS & Antoine BONNET & Richard WOOD, 2018. "Does climate action destroy jobs? An assessment of the employment implications of the 2‐degree goal," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 157(4), pages 519-556, December.
    3. Andreas Klasen & Roseline Wanjiru & Jenni Henderson & Josh Phillips, 2022. "Export finance and the green transition," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(5), pages 710-720, November.
    4. Dirk-Jan Koch, 2022. "Do transactions to tax havens and corruption attract officially supported export credit? Evidence from three European export credit agencies," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(6), pages 1-21, June.
    5. Kangxin An & Xinzhu Zheng & Jianxiang Shen & Canyang Xie & Can Wang & Wenjia Cai & Chujie Bu, 2025. "Repositioning coal power to accelerate net-zero transition of China’s power system," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Luigi Aldieri & Jonas Grafström & Kristoffer Sundström & Concetto Paolo Vinci, 2019. "Wind Power and Job Creation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, December.
    7. Lamperti, Francesco & Bosetti, Valentina & Roventini, Andrea & Tavoni, Massimo & Treibich, Tania, 2021. "Three green financial policies to address climate risks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Brown, Marilyn A. & Li, Yufei & Soni, Anmol, 2020. "Are all jobs created equal? Regional employment impacts of a U.S. carbon tax," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    9. Francesco Lamperti & Giovanni Dosi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Alessandro Sapio, 2018. "And then he wasn't a she : Climate change and green transitions in an agent-based integrated assessment model," Working Papers hal-03443464, HAL.
    10. Valerio Ercolani, 2021. "The macroeconomic impact of infrastructure investment: a review of channels," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 613, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    11. Trivedi, Jatin & Chakraborty, Dipanwita & Nobanee, Haitham, 2023. "Modelling the growth dynamics of sustainable renewable energy – Flourishing green financing," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    12. Verrier, Brunilde & Strachan, Neil, 2024. "Sunset and sunrise business strategies shaping national energy transitions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    13. Xia, Ying & Chen, Muyang, 2023. "The Janus face of stateness: China's development-oriented equity investments in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    14. repec:osf:socarx:2bx8h_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Guo, Yating & Rosland, Anitha & Ishak, Suryati & Muhammad Senan, Mohammad Khair Afham, 2023. "Public spending and natural resources development: A way toward green economic growth in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PB).
    16. Lola Nacke & Vadim Vinichenko & Aleh Cherp & Avi Jakhmola & Jessica Jewell, 2024. "Compensating affected parties necessary for rapid coal phase-out but expensive if extended to major emitters," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    17. Cahen-Fourot, Louison & Campiglio, Emanuele & Godin, Antoine & Kemp-Benedict, Eric & Trsek, Stefan, 2021. "Capital stranding cascades: The impact of decarbonisation on productive asset utilisation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    18. Matthias Kroll & Kjell Kühne, 2024. "“Climate Bailout”: a new tool for central banks to limit the financial risk resulting from climate change," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 217-232, March.
    19. Cheng, Xian & Zhao, Haichuan, 2019. "Modeling, analysis and mitigation of contagion in financial systems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 281-292.
    20. Thomas Hahn & Johannes Morfeldt & Robert Höglund & Mikael Karlsson & Ingo Fetzer, 2024. "Estimating countries’ additional carbon accountability for closing the mitigation gap based on past and future emissions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    21. Paola Andrea Yanguas Parra, 2023. "Closing the supply-side gap: using a novel vulnerability index to identify the right policy mix for coal producing countries," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 3-24, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-55981-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.