Japan is continuing to drive the expansion of fossil fuels across Asia and is derailing the transition to renewable energy. This harms communities and ecosystems, undermines energy security, and worsens the climate crisis. The facts speak for themselves.

Japanese financing of LNG projects has a legacy of environmental and human harm, especially along the US Gulf Coast. Japanese private banks (MUFG, Mizuho, SMBC) are the top three financiers for LNG export terminals in the U.S., and the U.S. is the largest exporter of LNG in the world.

On April 10-11, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, DC, address Congress, and join a trilateral meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.. This visit comes on the heels of the Biden Administration’s decision to pause pending LNG export approvals to non-free trade countries after intense pressure from frontline communities. Many don’t realize that Japan is one of the largest financiers of U.S. LNG export projects and is working to derail clean energy transitions across Asia and globally. 

New report shows that between 2020 and 2022, G20 governments and the multilateral development banks (MDBs) provided $142 billion in international public finance for fossil fuels, almost 1.4 times their support for clean energy in the same period.