OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria calls for zero net fossil fuel emissions by 2050

(Project Syndicate, Davos, 24 January 2014) There is no bailout option for the earth’s climate. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Gurria noted "Our planet is warming dangerously. And, as the 2013 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear, our carbon-dioxide emissions over the past half-century are extremely likely to be to blame. A more robust approach to global warming is needed if we are to avoid catastrophe. Unlike the recent financial crisis... This is why I am calling on all governments to be more ambitious – to aim for zero net emissions from fossil fuels by the second half of this century. Nothing short of a wholesale transformation of the energy economy will suffice. ECA Watch and many CSOs wrote the OECD Export Credit Working Group in September 2013 urging OECD Export Credit Agencies to discontinue their financing of coal projects.