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| Fossil fuel energy policy capture |
What the numbers do not show: social and narrative capture
Not all capture is in budgets and contracts. Narrative capture, through well-funded campaigns that emphasize short-term price relief or job creation while downplaying disaster risk, can crowd out support for vital investments, such as higher-elevation culverts, pump operation and maintenance, and community mangrove stewardship. TI’s latest CPI commentary highlights how fossil interests use money and media to silence critics and weaken safeguards. The public is told the grid is in crisis, while broken drainage beneath their feet remains unfixed. Residents living with these systems express a different reality. One local community member remarked, 'Every rain leaves our streets flooded and impassable, yet they tell us new power plants are the priority. It's as if our daily struggles are invisible.' This grassroots view challenges fossil-funded narratives and highlights the urgency for resilience investment (transparency.org).
The takeaway for the rest of the book
Upstream capture increases downstream corruption risk. If fossil interests dominate agenda-setting, ministries have strong incentives to announce climate projects but under-resource the oversight that makes them real. For example, a 2022 government report found that over 60% of planned climate audits were delayed or incomplete, revealing a significant oversight gap. The shortage of auditors and extensive audit backlogs further constrain adequate supervision, confirming the heightened downstream risk.
Subsidies and contracts shrink fiscal space. Large, sticky fossil fuel subsidies and long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) tie up significant portions of public budgets, leaving less room for critical climate adaptation investments. These commitments often prioritize fossil energy infrastructure, crowding out funding for the quality, maintenance, and monitoring of adaptation assets, such as flood barriers, resilient water systems, and emergency shelters. Studies by the IMF and the IEA show that persistent subsidies delay the transition to clean energy and impose substantial opportunity costs. Every dollar locked into fossil infrastructure is a dollar unavailable for building and safeguarding climate-resilient communities. Contractual obligations in PPAs can last for decades, creating rigid budget constraints that limit the flexibility of ministries and local authorities in responding to evolving climate risks. This is especially acute in developing countries, where fiscal space is already limited and adaptation needs are urgent. The result is that essential resilience projects may be postponed, underfunded, or built to lower standards, increasing the vulnerability of at-risk populations.
But downstream integrity is still actionable now. Even with imperfect upstream politics, we can strengthen the pipeline from budget to building site through open contracting, stronger supervision, verified disclosures, protected whistleblowers, and inclusive community oversight. For example, the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, has implemented open contracting principles, resulting in increased transparency and significant reductions in project costs and completion times for several public infrastructure projects. Such success stories show the practicality and impact of these approaches.
That’s where we go next: into the mechanics of public funds integrity, such as procurement, engineering standards, forests and water, social protection, so communities can get the protection they have already paid for.
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