Twenty countries committed to end their international public support for fossil fuels and to align it, in favour of the transition, with “clean energy” in a joint statement unveiled during the 26th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow on Thursday, 4 November.
“[We] will end new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022”, the statement indicated.
This concerns coal, oil, and fossil gas projects that are not coupled with technologies that capture and store CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion (‘unabated’).
Nevertheless, this commitment does provide for exceptions for “limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a 1.5°C warming limit and the goals of the Paris Agreement”.
The signatory countries are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Albania, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji, the Gambia, Mali, the Marshall Islands, Moldova, South Sudan, Switzerland, and Zambia.
Five development institutions, including the European Investment Bank (EIB), also signed the statement.
Lambasting France and Germany’s absence among the statement’s signatory countries, MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, the Netherlands) described the commitment as “an important announcement”. In his opinion, this “shows how the European Commission and EU countries that consider to classify gas as ‘green’ investment in the taxonomy are out of touch with reality” (see EUROPE 12825/5).
Maria Pastukhova, a policy advisor for the think tank E3G, called for “the diplomatic effort” to be pursued beyond COP26 so as to gain the support of major fossil fuel financiers in particular—naming Japan, China, and Germany.
See the statement: https://bit.ly/3nZPrxU (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)