Stopping fossil fuel subsidies

Between October 2023 and April 2024, di:ga worked with Oil Change International and partners on a campaign to end OECD export credit agency support to oil and gas projects overseas. One of the key aims of the campaign was to build elite media focus on OECD export finance for oil and gas projects, which hadn’t yet received much critical coverage.

For the November 2023 OECD meeting, we worked with OCI to develop a pitch on a joint UK/EU/Canada proposal to end support to fossil fuels, which led to a highly influential piece being published in the Financial Times (on the front page of the paper and online). This piece was cited at the OECD meeting, and led to meetings with the White House and scrutiny on negotiators.

Over the following months we secured influential news pieces in Reuters and the FT, and background briefings with leading journalists at the FT, the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, Politico and Huffpost. Many of these publications subsequently featured quotes from OCI/partners and the messaging we had developed. We also placed a letter in The Guardian and op-eds in Climate Home and Common Dreams.

As a result of our work, this became a much higher-profile issue, and pressure on OECD members to end their support for high-emission projects ramped up.