As part of its support to countries to meet their Paris Climate Agreement targets, the World Bank said on Tuesday that it would stop financing upstream oil and gas projects after 2019.
The World Bank will only make exceptions to consider possible support for financing upstream gas “in the poorest countries where there is a clear benefit in terms of energy access for the poor and the project fits within the countries’ Paris Agreement commitments,” the bank said in a statement at the One Planet Summit in Paris.
The summit, to mark the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement, is convened by France’s President Emmanuel, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.
Apart from ceasing to finance oil and gas, the World Bank said today that it was on track to meet its target of 28 percent of its lending going to climate action by 2020 and to meeting the goals of its Climate Change Action Plan that had been developed following the Paris Agreement.
The bank will also start reporting next year greenhouse gas emissions from the investment projects it finances in key emissions-producing sectors, such as energy. The first results will be published in late 2018, and annually after that. The World Bank will also invest in green bonds and in a green bond fund, and in loans and funding aimed at reducing fossil fuel subsidies.
Separately, the World Bank and Canada agreed at the Paris summit today to “support the acceleration of developing countries’ transition away from traditional coal-fired electricity toward clean energy to power their fast-growing economies.”
More than 50 heads of state and government as well as prominent business figures—including Bill Gates and Elon Musk—are taking part in the One Planet Summit in Paris today.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Olprice.com
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