Chinese “policy” banks have supplied almost as much financing for global energy projects as the four major western multilateral lenders combined but a concentration on coal-fired power plants is raising concerns about the environmental impact of Beijing’s support.

A new academic study found that two Chinese policy banks — the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China — provided $118bn in overseas energy finance between 2007 and 2014, compared with $119bn by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank combined (see the first table).

But China’s lending is “heavily exposed to country, macroeconomic, climate and social risks” according to the study authored jointly by Kevin Gallagher, professor at Boston University and co-director at the Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI), Rohini Kamal of GEGI and Wang Yongzhong at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.