Investors and NGOs take tougher line on climate change

Fossil fuel projects in Africa often need international support to proceed and multilateral agencies and asset managers are strengthening their climate-related investment criteria, potentially leaving valuable resources stuck in limbo

It started with multilateral agencies and overseas development ministries removing support for coal projects. Now asset managers are enthusiastically leapfrogging each other’s climate pledges to secure their share of increasingly bountiful green dollars. There is a possibility that oil and even relatively climate-friendly gas could face similar investment restrictions as coal in the not-too-distant future. African countries could be doubly hit if multilateral support and institutional investor cash dries up at the same time, leaving abundant resources in the ground. It is already difficult to see where funding for coal projects could come from, outside of China, with institutions as diverse