A PARLIAMENTARY panel is accusing the government of hypocrisy for funding fossil-fuel projects abroad despite its MPs having voted in favour of declaring a “climate emergency.”

In a report published today, the international development select committee slams the multibillion-pound support for fossil fuels overseas as “incoherent.”

The government issues loans to such projects in developing countries through its controversial UK Export Finance (UKEF) credit agency.

The committee points out in the report, entitled UK Aid for Combating Climate Change, that funding these projects undermines Britain’s international aid and calls for the inconsistency to be “rectified urgently.”

UKEF, which underwrites loans and insurance for risky export deals as part of efforts to boost international trade, has a history of lending overwhelmingly to fossil-fuel projects, according to campaign group Global Witness.

A huge 99.4 per cent of all UKEF’s energy support went to fossil fuels, according to research conducted by the Overseas Development Institute, the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (Cafod) and others in the last measurable period, it said.

This included £109 million of underwriting for mining equipment for Russian coalmines between 2011 and 2016, support for an Oman oil refinery in February last year and another in Bahrain on the same week that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change released its report warning that the world has 12 years left to stop climate change becoming irreversible.

Global Witness submitted analysis to the parliamentary committee that compares the £4.8 billion total UKEF support for fossil-fuel projects from 2010-16 with Britain’s total spend on its International Climate Fund for 2011-17, which came to £4.9bn.  

Former United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki Moon called on UKEF to phase out fossil-fuel support, saying that this would be a test of Prime Minister Theresa May’s commitment to addressing climate change.

Global Witness senior campaigner Adam McGibbon said: “Last week, the government’s MPs, led by Michael Gove, voted to declare a ‘climate emergency.’

“But this commitment is laughable, given that, through UKEF, the government continues to spend billions on extracting fossil fuels in developing countries.

“With one hand, the UK claims to be a climate leader and spends billions on fighting climate change abroad. With the other hand, it provides billions to make climate change worse by funding fossil-fuel projects worldwide.

“This hypocrisy has to stop. Theresa May needs to phase out UKEF’s fossil-fuel support to zero if we are to have a hope of staving off the worst effects of climate change.”