Wednesday was Finance Day at COP27 and US Climate Envoy John Kerry announced the creation of the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), a carbon offset plan which would allow big corporations to use carbon offset credits to pay for their GHG emissions. The money would be employed in developing countries in projects to jumpstart the transition to renewable energy.
The initiative has been met with skepticism from some European nations as well as members of the U.N. secretary general’s staff, because they felt the plan lacked details and was being rushed, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.
Some of the most influential environmental groups in the United States who were briefed by the State Department on the strategy, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute, also do not support the plan because they fear it could actually undermine efforts to drive down global emissions to zero, activists said. www.nytimes.com/...
“Our intention is to put the carbon market to work to deploy capital to speed the transition from dirty to clean power specifically, to retire unabated coal-fired power and accelerate the buildout of renewables,” Kerry said, pledging that the program’s carbon credits would be “high quality” and meet “strong safeguards”.
The US partnered with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation in the ETA project. Microsoft, PepsiCo, Bank of America, and Standard Chartered Bank have expressed interest in the ETA and are watching to see if it launches successfully.
Several European leaders at COP27 announced funds to help poor nations recover from loss and damage caused by climate change. The United States was silent.
The commitment of direct funding for loss and damage represents a major break from precedent. For decades, wealthy nations, which have emitted half of all heat-trapping gasses since 1850, have avoided calls to help poor countries recover from climate disasters, fearing that doing so could open them to unlimited liability. And, as a legal and a practical matter, it has been extraordinarily difficult to define “loss and damage” and determine what it might cost and who should pay how much
Climate activists demand end to public finance for fossil fuels at COP27
A global coalition of civil society groups organized a demonstration at the COP27 climate negotiations in Egypt on “Finance Day” to demand wealthy governments stop financing new fossil fuel projects and shift investments to renewable energy.
A recent report from Friends of the Earth U.S. and Oil Change International found Japan, South Korea, and China were among the top providers of international public finance for fossil fuels, with fossil support amounting to USD 24.6 billion during 2019-2022. The three East Asian countries also led the world in public finance for new gas infrastructure projects.
The Japanese government was also revealed as the world’s top financier of fossil fuels, according to a new briefing from Oil Change International. Japan spent an average of USD 10.6 billion of public finance on fossil fuel projects per year between 2019 and 2021. Japan is also the world’s largest financier of fossil gas and has been driving the expansion of gas across Asia and globally.
Unreported emissions and protests: 5 key takeaways from COP27 as focus shifts to finance
Focus has shifted to finance on the fourth day of COP27.
Today also saw some of the first protests to take place at the conference centre in Sharm El Sheikh and revelations about unreported emissions from fossil fuel giants.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the fourth day of COP27.
Spending our way out of climate catastrophe
The Africa Group of Negotiators (an alliance of African member states that represents the interests of the region in the international climate change negotiations) has estimated that the continent needs US $3 trillion in order to implement its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.
Developed countries have provided US $80 billion of the US $100 billion in climate finance they pledged to contribute annually to developing countries; of this, less than US $20 billion was provided in total to Africa between 2016 and 2019.