Target 7.a: Cooperation and investment in clean energy
By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel technology, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technology
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
International public clean energy finance to developing countries was USD 21.6 billion in 2023, 83 percent of it debt-based. The IEA puts international public finance at only about 7 percent of clean energy investment in emerging economies outside China. The target therefore depends heavily on private capital and technology deployment by listed energy, equipment and finance companies. Ceres' 2024 bank proxy campaign shows shareholders already voting to redirect bank capital toward clean energy. Clean energy financing ratio proposals drew 26 percent at Bank of America, 29 percent at Goldman Sachs and 23 percent at Morgan Stanley, and the campaign won commitments from JPMorgan, Citigroup and RBC. Governments and development banks still set the cooperation frameworks the target names, so owners supply a necessary input and public actors must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Energy access improving, but international financial support still needed to boost progress and address disparities, International Energy Agency, 2025-06-25
- World Energy Investment 2025, Executive summary, International Energy Agency, 2025
- Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Supports and publicizes bank climate finance proposals, describing the clean energy supply financing ratio as a vital metric for evaluating banks' progress in financing the transition, and tracks results of the 2024 ratio proposals and related lobbying proposals at banks.
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05
Filed 2023 shareholder proposals asking major US banks for climate transition plans showing how they will meet 2030 financed emissions targets.
8 campaigns on record
Disclose each year the ratio of the money the bank puts into clean energy supply against the money it puts into fossil fuel energy supply, and explain how the figure is worked out.
Result: Withdrawn after the bank agreed to disclose the ratio
The bank agreed to disclose its clean energy to fossil fuel financing ratio
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
Disclose each year the ratio of the money the bank puts into clean energy supply against the money it puts into fossil fuel energy supply, and explain how the figure is worked out.
Result: Withdrawn after the bank agreed to disclose the ratio
The bank agreed to disclose its clean energy to fossil fuel financing ratio
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
Disclose each year the ratio of the money the bank puts into clean energy supply against the money it puts into fossil fuel energy supply, and explain how the figure is worked out.
Result: Withdrawn after the bank agreed to disclose the ratio
The bank agreed to disclose its clean energy to fossil fuel financing ratio
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
Disclose each year the ratio of the money the bank puts into clean energy supply against the money it puts into fossil fuel energy supply, and explain how the figure is worked out.
Result: 23 percent in favor on preliminary results
we found no documented change
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
Disclose each year the ratio of the money the bank puts into clean energy supply against the money it puts into fossil fuel energy supply, and explain how the figure is worked out.
Result: 29 percent in favor at the April 24, 2024 annual meeting
we found no documented change
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
Disclose each year the ratio of the money the bank puts into clean energy supply against the money it puts into fossil fuel energy supply, and explain how the figure is worked out.
Result: 26 percent in favor at the April 24, 2024 annual meeting
we found no documented change
Investors drive banks toward greater transparency on climate in 2024 proxy season, Ceres, 2024-05-24
Publish a climate transition plan showing how the bank will align its financing with its 2030 emissions reduction targets.
Result: 30 percent support
Publish a climate transition plan showing how the bank will align its financing with its 2030 emissions reduction targets.
Result: 31.1 percent support
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.