Bankers Becoming Aware of Financial Risks of Climate Change World Wide

Duane Nichols — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 08:05:35 +0000

The future is in the hands of bankers

World’s Largest Public Bank Ditches Oil and Coal in Victory for the Climate Movement

From an Article by Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams, November 15, 2019

Climate activists celebrated Thursday the decision of the European Investment Bank (EIB) to stop funding most oil and coal projects by 2021, part of a bid to be the world’s first “climate bank.”

The bank’s board made the decision at a meeting on Thursday, CNBC reported. “Truly amazing win,” tweeted environmentalist Bill McKibben.

In a statement following the news, Friends of the Earth Europe fossil free campaigner Colin Roche said the bank’s decision was a big one. “Today’s decision is a significant victory for the climate movement,” said Roche. “Finally, the world’s largest public bank has bowed to public pressure and recognised that funding for all fossil fuels must end—and now all other banks, public and private must follow their lead.”

Nonetheless, Roche cautioned against complacency. “But 2021 is still too late if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate breakdown, the EIB needs to reject any fossil fuel projects and close its loopholes for gas, and not wait till 2021,” Roche said.

As Common Dreams reported, a previous commitment from the bank would have ended fossil fuel projects by the end of 2020.

According to Reuters, the new policy does not outright ban all fossil fuel projects, but makes most of them impossible under the new parameters:

Under the new policy, energy projects applying for EIB funding will need to show they can produce one kilowatt hour of energy while emitting less than 250 grams of carbon dioxide, a move which bans traditional gas-burning power plants.

Gas projects are still possible, but would have to be based on what the bank called “new technologies,” such as carbon capture and storage, combining heat and power generation or mixing in renewable gases with the fossil natural gas.

“This is an important first step, this is not the last step,” EIB vice-president for energy Andrew McDowell told the BBC.

The news was welcomed by climate advocacy group 350 Action. In a statement, the group’s Germany campaigner Kate Cahoon called the decision “the beginning of the end of climate-wrecking fossil fuel finance” but warned there was still work to do.

“The gas lobby has unfortunately managed to get Germany and the European Commission to insert some loopholes into the policy, which leave the door open for funding of dangerous fossil gas projects,” said Cahoon. “They had better take note of the growing list of pipelines, terminals, and fracking wells that are scrapped thanks to local opposition and the unprecedented masses of people mobilizing for climate justice.”

The bank’s move was seen by 350′s France campaigner Clémence Dubois as an example for other financial institutions across the globe.

“This is a clear signal to financial institutions in Europe and around the world that they must take rapid, transformative action to change their financial models, keep fossil fuels in the ground, and support a just transition to sustainable forms of energy for all,” said Dubois.

NOTE: Click on the graph above to display the traces.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at United Nations Must be Funded

Duane Nichols — Mon, 15 May 2017 05:05:10 +0000

The science has simplified these issues

Climate negotiators rally to protect IPCC science funding

From an Article by Karl Mathiesen in Bonn, Climate Change News, May 12, 2017

National delegates in Bonn rejected a proposal by UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to stop funding science reports from its core budget

Indignant countries at climate talks in Bonn have demanded that the UN climate convention continues funding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading authority on climate science.

A draft 2018-19 budget from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) proposes to eliminate its funding for the IPCC, asking countries to support the body with direct voluntary payments.

But according to several sources present at a budget discussion on Wednesday evening, countries rounded on the UN secretariat.

Shifting the onus of the funding from the core budget of the UNFCCC, which is funded by compulsory contributions from member states, to individual country donors, would allow some to free-ride. Rarely so united at these talks, the majority of parties rejected the secretariat’s proposal.

“Parties are the supreme body of this convention, they are the secretariat,” said Bernarditas Muller, a climate advisor to the Philippines government and the Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc.

A German diplomat at the talks told Climate Home: “We made that point very clear that as these two institutions are so closely interlinked, that we would see it as a very bad signal if the UNFCCC contributions to the IPCC wouldn’t continue. And there is as far as I hear it right now a lot of support for that view.”

The UNFCCC sent $243,245 to the IPCC in 2016. Between $250,000 and $300,000 per year had been earmarked for the next budget, according to UNFCCC spokesman Nicholas Nuttall.

Asked whether there had been a pushback from countries, Nuttall said he would not characterise it as such. “More a great deal of interest to really understand our current budget,” he said.

“The UNFCCC secretariat have appreciated how much and how openly all countries are engaging on the budget discussions and we hope we can realise a successful outcome by the end of the May sessions with a view to this budget,” added Nuttall.

The IPCC has struggled for funding in recent years. In 2016, it gathered $4.3m from donor countries and various UN bodies, including the UNFCCC. In 2013, the body collected more than $7m.

Muller said science from the IPCC, which conducts periodic and comprehensive reviews of global climate science, formed the basis of the convention. “They are independent, they are not under our control. But they provide us with scientific analysis. And we can, as parties, request them to do work. They are the ones actually, who put this issue on the political agenda of states. It’s only if you put it on the political agenda that you can get decisions and policy to address the problem,” she said.

The IPCC and UNFCCC have both been singled out by US president Donald Trump as organisations from which he wants to cut funding in upcoming budgets. The US is the biggest single funder of the UN climate process.

In its draft budget, the UNFCCC assumes the US will continue to contribute.

See: Climate Change News

See also: Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

Frack Check WV » funding

Bankers Becoming Aware of Financial Risks of Climate Change World Wide

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at United Nations Must be Funded