{"id":45207,"date":"2021-11-04T15:54:34","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T15:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=45207"},"modified":"2021-11-10T12:55:48","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T12:55:48","slug":"canada-us-italy-among-20-countries-stop-financing-fossil-fuels-internationally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2021\/11\/04\/canada-us-italy-among-20-countries-stop-financing-fossil-fuels-internationally\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada, US, Italy among 20 countries to stop financing fossil fuels internationally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four major economies have agreed to end their support for fossil fuel projects internationally in an announcement campaigners hailed as a “historic breakthrough”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At an overflowing event on the sidelines of Cop26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, Canada, the US and Italy joined the UK in promising<\/a> not to commit any new finance for unabated coal, oil and gas projects in other countries by the end of 2022.<\/p>\n

Oil Change International campaigner Laurie van der Burg said: \u201cThe signatories of today’s statement are doing what\u2019s most logical in a climate emergency: stop adding fuel to the fire and shift dirty finance to climate action.”<\/p>\n

E3G sustainable finance expert, Iskander Erzini Vernoit called it a “historic breakthrough that would not have been possible just a few years ago.”<\/p>\n

In total, 20 countries and five development banks signed the pledge on Thursday. Germany, Spain and the Netherlands joined a few days later. Big fossil fuel backers missing from the list include Japan, South Korea, China, France, Australia, the African Development Bank and World Bank.<\/p>\n

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As a last-minute addition, Italy was left off this map of signatories distributed by the UK government (Photo: Screenshot\/Youtube\/UK government<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Many developed country governments financially support projects abroad that they expect to benefit their own economies. They do this through offering export credit guarantees, so that their taxpayers bear a project’s risk rather than the private companies, or by offering loans on better terms than private banks.<\/p>\n

Research by Oil Change International<\/a> shows that, in 2018-2020, Canada was the biggest financer of foreign fossil fuels in the G20, contributing $11bn a year.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the pledge’s launch event in Glasgow, Canadian minister of natural resources Jonathan Wilkinson cited the International Energy Agency’s recent report<\/a> on what net zero by 2050 means for the global energy sector.<\/p>\n

He said: “The report called for immediate and massive deployment of all available clean and efficient energy technologies combined with a major global push to accelerate innovation… we need to deploy public resources in a way that is consistent with our climate goals”.
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