France announces that it will end its subsidies with fossil energy projects abroad

The Minister of the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompilili, announced that France joined a coalition of thirty countries and development banks that will no longer finance fossil energy projects if they are not accompanied by “Attenuation devices” of greenhouse gas emissions.

by

This is a rebound in the fossil fuel support file that animated the United Nations Climate Change (COP26). In Glasgow (Scotland), Friday, November 12, the Minister of the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompilili, announced that France joined a coalition of thirty countries and development banks (United States, Canada …) which will put an end to their investments in oil, gas and coal abroad from the end of 2022. This alliance was launched on November 5 by the United Kingdom, but France was not part of it, preferring to stay on Its end schedule of oil support in 2025 and gas in 2035, export.

“This signature is a coherence decision for France. Even if this coalition has its imperfections, it creates a dynamic that is important for things to advance, explains the minister. She completes the work we started.”

France will therefore fund, from the next year, the fossil energy projects that are not accompanied by “attenuation devices” of greenhouse gas emissions (such as catchment and The storage of CO 2 ), as provided in the text of the coalition. Then, it will stick to its schedule to stop financing all the projects, whether or not they are backed by carbon capture techniques: 2021 for coal, 2025 for oil and 2035 for gas. A revorative date was set next year to review this calendar.

France isolated before this decision

France was very criticized in recent days because it had not joined this coalition, especially since the latter had been signed by the French Development Agency (AFD). She had found himself more and more isolated on the European scene. France had launched, in April 2021, a coalition of seven countries (Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden), Export Finance for Future , committing to” accelerate the progressive output “of the Financing fossil energy projects, but without a date. However, all these countries have, day after day during the COP26, joined the Alliance led by the United Kingdom.

M ME Pompili defends himself to have transferred to the pressure. “The only pressure is that of climate change. We wanted to take the time to compete this text,” she replies. “It may be interesting to use the catch-storage techniques of the 2 , but they are only at the beginning. Founding on it would be a mistake,” she says . The minister is unable to say, in the immediate future, how many projects will no longer be funded next year.

You have 33.03% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.

/Media reports.