The World Bank will no longer finance upstream oil and gas projects after 2019, Reuters reports.

Exceptions might be made for some gas projects in some of the world’s poorest countries, the news agency reports.

Environmental groups welcomed the decision.

“The World Bank … has sent a damning vote of no confidence to the future of the fossil fuel industry,” Gyorgy Dallos, a Greenpeace International Climate Campaigner, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The World Bank has provided $4 billion to Egypt’s energy sector, the Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, Sahar Nasr, said in October.

Much of that funding went toward solar projects and economic reforms in the sector and not upstream oil and gas operations.