US to end int'l financing for fossil fuel projects - but how?

(Reuters, Barcelona, 27 January 2021) The United States will produce a plan to end international financing for fossil fuel projects, its special climate envoy John Kerry said Wednesday, as senior British and U.N. officials urged donor nations to meet a flagship climate finance promise. Speaking at an online panel organised by the World Economic Forum, Kerry said the new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden would draft a plan for U.S. climate finance, without giving further details. He noted the United States had spent $265 billion cleaning up three major hurricanes that hit the country in 2017, while another storm in 2020 racked up a bill of $55 billion. Yet “in stark contrast, we don’t fully fund” a commitment by wealthy governments, enshrined in the Paris Agreement, to raise $100 billion a year globally to help poor, vulnerable nations adopt clean energy and adapt to extreme weather and rising seas, he said.  Friends of the Earth noted that in the past two years the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) approved over $5 billion for fossil fuel projects abroad.

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