Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we are signing a letter to officials in the Biden Administration urging them to quickly develop plans to implement President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.

The U.S. Government through its financial institutions like the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) have provided an average of $4.4 billion per year over the past decade to new fossil fuel projects around the world. It’s putting Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and wildlife at risk. Instead of helping countries develop, these investments have led to conflict, corruption and human rights abuses, while also fueling the climate emergency and harming livelihoods. This needs to stop.

The U.S. government should follow the example of the UK, which last year ended taxpayer support for fossil fuel projects overseas, as soon as possible. Such a plan should include bilateral development finance, export finance, trade promotion, and finance through multilateral development banks.

If the U.S. wants to be a climate leader, it must shift U.S. public finance abroad away from fossil fuels and towards green development pathways. The U.S. strategy must:

• Cover all U.S. public finance institutions including multilateral institutions in which the U.S. participates like the World Bank and the IMF.
• Apply across the oil, gas, and coal value chain (i.e., include upstream, midstream, and downstream segments), as well as associated facilities and related infrastructure, and should apply to all funding streams and modalities.
• Scale up international support for a just transition away from fossil fuels.
• Exclude new gas infrastructure from eligibility for all future government financing. Gas is not a climate solution, nor is it a “bridge fuel.” Rather, it diverts resources from less polluting, economically advantageous renewables, and other solutions that truly support decarbonization, it seldom delivers significant energy access benefits, and it locks countries into import dependency and stranded asset risk.
• Include a strategy to partner with the UK, the EU, and other front-running countries to secure additional commitments from other governments and public finance institutions to end their public finance for fossil fuels.

As the world’s largest historic contributor to climate change, the United States has an obligation to support the world in a just transition away from fossil fuels and towards green development and recovery, not only through its actions at home, but also abroad.

Options to Take Action:

1. Sign an Action Letter at the Action Table outside the church on Sunday morning.
2. Click on this link to Friends of the Earth action: Stop your tax dollars from funding fossil fuel projects overseas.

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If you ever need to look up your member of the U.S. House of Representatives or your U.S. Senators check here: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

To find contact information for your California State Senator or California State Assemblyperson check here: www.senate.ca.gov and www.assembly.ca.gov.