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LAST UPDATE | 4 Nov 2021
19 COUNTRIES HAVE signed a pledge to end new funding for the unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of next year.
The United States, the UK, New Zealand and other countries around the world signed up to the pledge, though Ireland has not, and nor have China, Japan or South Korea.
Six financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank, have given their support to the measure.
Last month, G20 countries agreed to end their financial support for new unabated coal plants internationally, but the commitment made today is the first of its kind to include oil and gas projects.
Unabated fossil fuel projects means ones that do not use technology to absorb the carbon pollution they emit.
In a joint statement, the signatories promised to “prioritise our support fully towards the clean energy transition, using our resources to enhance what can be delivered by the private sector”.
“This support should strive to ‘do no significant harm’ to the goals of the Paris Agreement, local communities and local environments,” the statement said.
“Further, we will end new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022, except in limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a 1.5°C warming limit and the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
The countries and financial institutions who signed up to the pledge are also commiting to encourage other governments, export credit agencies, and institutions to implement similar commitments at COP27 next year and beyond.
In Europe, the signatory countries are Albania, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Moldova, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the UK.
Elsewhere, Canada, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Mali, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, South Sudan, the US and Zambia have signed the pledge.
Speaking at a press conference in Glasgow, director of Energy Justice Program at the Center for Biological Diversity in the US, Jean Su, said that this is a “historic commitment”.
However, she said the deal is insufficient and “long overdue” and urged countries like China, Japan and South Korea to also sign up to the deal.
Mohamed Adow, director of think-tank Powershift Africa criticised developed nations pulling funding from new fossil fuel projects overseas while continuing to fund these projects in their own countries.
He said this is developed nations “effectively pulling the ladder after they’ve gained prosperity” with fossil fuels themselves.
Adow said there needs to be greater leadership on this issue.
“We need to phase out fossil fuels,” he added. “Enough is enough on this greenwashing.”
Between 2018 and 2020, G20 countries gave $188 billion worth of funding to overseas fossil fuel projects, according to research by Oil Change International.
COP commitments
COP26, a major UN climate summit, is halfway through its first week in Glasgow.
Heads of states and governments from around the globe, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin, met in Glasgow on Monday and Tuesday for a two-day World Leaders Summit.
On Tuesday, counties vowed to end deforestation by 2030 in a multibillion-dollar pledge that met a mixed response – while stopping deforestation was welcomed, some environmental groups said it needs to happen faster.
However, Indonesia has cast doubt on whether it will participate.
Indonesia’s environment minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar, said on social media that “forcing Indonesia to zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair”.
She said the president’s “massive development” must “not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation”.
The country’s forests decreased in size by about 10% between 2011 and 2020.
With reporting by Orla Dwyer and AFP
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Secondary level students Union?
Elected by who??
Survey result ‘dogs like sausages’ who would have guessed
There’s student going into 3rd year of college who have never sat a proper exam it’s mental
@Euro McPúnty: and yet the world keeps turning and these students keep achieving,
Accredited Grades didn’t work. And the teachers doing some form of Continual Assessment is a recipe for disaster.
The Leaving Certificate needs a major overhaul. Today’s society has a lot of knowledge at its tips. Their is a need to look at the model adopted by third level educational institutions. There is a need to adapted the Leaving Certificate curriculum to take in subjects that allows students to use their critical thinking, emotional intelligence and social skills.
Now is the time and the opportunity to modernise our state exams, to step away from rogue learning.
@Padraic Morgan: pesky ‘rogue’ learning. An element driving the out-dated model however is society itself, there is this drive that everyone needs to undertake a university degree programme straight out of the leaving cert. An approach that neglects other modes of 3rd level education, apprenticeships, life-long learning, and engaging with 3rd level later in life. If we collectively stopped viewing a degree as the only option we might end up with a more acceptable approach to learning.
@D. Memery: I would argue that it’s employers that need to change their views on degrees. Supply and demand like anything else. Of course there are some professions that requir in depth understanding of certain topics but a lot of people are hired on a degree only to be taught their profession on the job anyway.
There is need for flexibility in modern education but it needs to be well thought through and not rushed in. How do you maintain the standards and stop Lucinda from offering the Holiday home in Kerry to her teacher friend if she gives the daughter a good grade for continual assessment.? There has to be the same standard for everybody 500 points in leash can’t be different than 500 points in Donegal and these things take time to put in place. The students are just scared because they have never done a junior cert and are afraid of the formal exam.
@Anne Marie Kearney: junior cert whilst scary is not as important as the leaving cert students and I feel this year they should be given the option same as last year. Going forward maybe return to the original method but I feel this needs an overhaul anyway. My daughter is LC and has lost a lot, lack of teacher continuity etc. Very stressful for them.
In this day and age the customer is the student / parent. Customers are telling you they no longer want your outdated model – you tell them it’s what you prefer to offer them !!! I’ve heard so much about being flexible and pivoting in the last couple of years – but that seems to only apply when you’re the customer or staff … it’s clear where the blockers for progress and aversion to improvement lies.
@dottiemac: The customer is not always right. There’s a plqce for the customer’s voice but it should not override those with actual expertise and qualifications. It’s a bit like car owners telling a mechanic how a car should be fixed or a patient telling a doctor how they should be treated.
How about using the same reduced style papers as last year? More choice to compensate for loss of teaching time through school closure and lots of illness this year. Currently there are only minor modifications to papers and that is not sufficient.
Here me go again, media banging on about the Leaving Cert, one would think everything in life depends on it.
Anyone that believes that colleges are driven by a desire for equity and the welfare of students education is deluded . Cash is king
People say exam system is too rigid. Girls were awarded 8 extra points so outperforming boys by an even higher margin when teachers graded pupils. Ps what if it had been that boys scores gravitated closer to girls scores
We would have never heard the end of it sexism mysogeny black Black bla
I get that last year was messy and grades we’re inflated, but unless we capitalize on teachers grading students in some shape or form we will always have this pints race Leaving Cert. The unions and universities have a lot to answer for in terms of our teens mental health.
@Lucy Legacy: I wish there was a pints race when I did my Leaving Cert. That would have been epic!
@Lucy Legacy: On a more serious note, there was much more stress involved in the LC 20 or so years ago. There were less courses and less pathways at 3rd Level and bar the orals, everything rode on the final exam making it much more high stakes. Could it be that teenagers were more resilient then than now and if so, why?
@Elrond Rivendell: me too :). I might have won that one.
@Elrond Rivendell: It’s true that Further Education is opening doors in alternative ways. Good also that it’s on the CAO. The points race has been going on since the 90s, and we know it’s wrong.I think it’s an abuse of sorts and shocking that despite It been deemed a ‘violence’ on kids by recent UN report,little has changed. It’s not the same in most other countries- mostly because the teacher marks most of it as continuous assessment.Much fairer.
@Elrond Rivendell: The old point to point race,horses for courses etc.
@Lucy Legacy: girls grades were inflated mostly if I’m not wrong.
Why bother. These days you pay for your degree and get it, just like any other purchase. Standards aren’t an issue. If you can afford to finance a degree then it’s yours.
So what they’re actually saying is that there’s a serious shortage of places for college courses relative to demand, and they’d rather simply make students feel that they can’t get in because they’re not smart enough rather than address the shortage of places itself?
RTE news : Major increase in number of top grades in Leaving Cert
http://www.rte.ie/news/education/2022/0123/1275360-leaving-cert/
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