The European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), invest more in fossil fuels than they do in renewable energy.
According to EIB officials, between 2007 and 2011 their bank invested €15 billion in fossil fuel projects compared to €14.8 billion in renewables.
According to the new South East Europe Change Network (SEECN) report, (which covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia), between 2006 and 2012, 32 times more of the €1.68 billion invested by development banks in the Western Balkans’ energy infrastructure went to fossil fuels than to non-hydropower-based renewables.
The SEECN report found that fossil fuels accounted for 36 percent of all bank loans in the region and almost half of the lending from the biggest regional lender, the EBRD. Half of the EBRD’s annual €6.7 billion of energy lending goes to fossil fuels.
The report found that only 17 percent of bank lending to the Western Balkans currently goes to energy efficiency projects.
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