The world has to stop using fossil fuels, but investment in the sector continues unabated. Investors of all kinds, including banks, insurance companies and pension funds, are hesitant about making the change to sustainable energy and are not sure where to start. In the autumn of 2019, together with the DivestInvest Network and Sustainable Energy (Denmark), Both ENDS published a report entitled ‘Managed Decline of Fossil Fuel Businesses’. The report describes five criteria to test whether companies in the fossil sector are actively taking steps to wind down their fossil activities. The criteria are helping investors to choose investments that are in line with the Paris goal of restricting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius. We spoke to Lars Jensen, Senior Analyst at Sustainable Energy and lead author of the report.
In 2011 one of the world’s largest gas reserves was found in the coastal province of Cabo Delgado, in the north of Mozambique. A total of 35 billion dollars has been invested to extract the gas. Dozens of multinationals and financiers are involved in these rapid developments. It is very difficult for the people living in Cabo Delgado to exert influence on the plans and activities, while they experience the negative consequences. With the arrival of these companies, they are losing their land.
The climate debate in the Netherlands is bogged down in what we can change at home and does not touch on our actions abroad. And that is a missed opportunity. Precisely because our international trade model is both so influential and, at the same time, such a widespread cause of pollution, changes in that policy can have an immediate effect.
In the run up to the European elections of 22 May, the Fair, Green & Global Alliance is organizing a debate in which several Dutch party leaders for the European elections are challenged to answer the following questions.
How will our continent look like in the near future and, above all, how do we want to improve Europe? What is the role of European trade policy and tax evasion? Can Europe emerge from the crisis fair and green? In short, what is the future of Europe?
The Dutch pension fund, ABP, invested about two billion euros more in the fossil energy industry at the end of 2016 than the year before. This is announced by the report "Dirty & Dangerous: the fossil fuel investments of Dutch pension fund ABP," published today by Both ENDS, German urgewald and Fossielvrij NL. The report criticizes these investments because of the impact on the climate and the catastrophic consequences for the people in the areas where coal, oil and gas are being produced.
Press Release
Dutch export credit agency Atradius DSB provides ample opportunity for money laundering and tax avoidance.
A structural lack of control on the part of Dutch export credit agency Atradius Dutch State Business (DSB) gives leeway to its customers and their partners to launder money and dodge taxes. This is the main conclusion of the study ‘Cover for What?’ done by researchers of the Dutch NGO Both ENDS. Displaying this lack of control Atradius, which is working exclusively for the Dutch State, undermines policies designed by the very Dutch State to counteract money laundering and tax evasion. The study shows three transactions backed by Atradius in which multinationals choose a seat in tax havens and handle affairs from there, using non-transparent business structures. Atradius does nothing to counter these strategies. The lack of control displayed by Dutch ECA Atradius might very well apply to similar export credit agencies in other countries.
Both ENDS Partners EMG, South Africa, Keystone, India and Amichoco from Colombia are all three nominated for the prestigious World Challenge of the BBC.