Germany announced on Tuesday 9 November that it had signed a non-binding commitment to stop financing fossil fuel projects abroad by the end of 2022, one day after a similar announcement by the Netherlands (see EUROPE 12828/21).
Unveiled on Thursday 4 November at the 26th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow (see EUROPE 12826/1), this commitment now brings together 23 countries (Germany, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Albania, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Mali, the Marshall Islands, Moldova, South Sudan, Switzerland, Zambia, the Netherlands and El Salvador).
As a result, according to the UK government’s envoy to COP26, John Murton, around $22 billion a year will no longer be invested in fossil fuels.
Absence of France
Asked by the press about the absence of France among the signatories of the commitment, the French Minister of Environmental Transition, Barbara Pompili, explained on Tuesday that this was due to a difference in “tempo” and “methodology”.
She recalled that her country has set a legally binding target of ending State export guarantees in 2021 for heavy oil and tar sands, 2025 for oil, and 2035 for gas, while stressing that this is a total halt to financing.
The commitment launched last week, however, only covers fossil fuel projects that are not coupled with CO2 capture and storage technologies (‘unabated’). It also provides 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”. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)