The European Investment Bank has stated that it regards climate change as an important issue. As a result it has made recent major strides into carbon trading. Together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EIB manages a climate change facility. While the actual usefulness of carbon trading for combating climate change is a very controversial issue, there is common agreement that renewable energy and energy efficiency are concrete answers to climate change.

Transport is one of the EIB’s main investment focuses. A 2007 report from Bankwatch, Lost in Transportation found that between 1996 and 2005 the EIB loaned EUR 112 billion for transport globally, making up approximately one third of the bank's total investments in the period. Over half of these investments went for road and air transport, the most climate-damaging modes.

Extractive industries (oil, gas and mining) projects have devastating environmental and social impacts. They often cause irreversible damage to ecosystems, spoil the conditions of life of the communities depending on them and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. However, today the EIB is the leading international public lender in the extractives sector.

Access to water is a basic human need, which is why Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number 7 aims to “halve by 2015 the proportion of people in urban and rural areas without sustainable access to safe drinking water”. The EIB is a major player in the water sector and considers itself to be committed to the MDGs. In spite of this, the EIB seems deeply committed to this outdated privatisation agenda.