WOBO thanks “edie” for the dissemination of environmental developments.
EIB pledges extra €30bn to support energy transition amid gas price crisis
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has pledged to provide an additional €30bn to clean energy and energy infrastructure over the next five years, to support the EU’s plans to end Russian fossil fuel imports.
The EU first tabled its landmark ‘RePowerEU’ plan back in May. The headline ambition of the €300bn plan is to make the bloc independent of Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027. Doing this will require short-term investments in new gas storage, as well as increasing longer-term ambitions on energy efficiency and clean energy.
While some EU member states are reportedly looking to water down increased 2030 targets for clean energy at present, the plan will still entail a massive scaling up of public and private funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy storage and grid upgrades.
To that end, the EIB’s board of directors has approved a new package of €30bn of loans and equity financing to be provided over a five-year period. The finance is classed as “supplementary” – it is all additional to the support the Bank is already providing to Europe’s energy sector. Countries will be able to access funding for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and green hydrogen, also.
The Good Food Finance Network’s High Ambition Group features 11 influential investor institutions and has today (27 October) unveiled a tranche of new ESG targets covering more than $113bn in existing assets.
The Good Food Finance Network is convened by UNEP, WBCSD, EAT Foundation, Food Systems for the Future and FAIRR. Seven of the group’s members have published new public targets on areas regarding zero deforestation, carbon removal and gender equality. The financial firms are Rabobank, Nuveen Natural Capital, Signature Agri Investments, Global Environment Facility, Phatisa in Mauritius, Norwegian firm Yara and FIRA from Mexico.
With the WWF’s latest ‘Living Planet’ report warning that the average population size decline for wildlife globally now sits at 69% since 1970, the coalition of businesses are setting new public targets to try and avert these trends. The organisations have attempted to set credible, time-bound targets aimed at creating a sustainable food system.
Rabobank will deliver a programme with an ambition of sequestering 150 megatons of CO2 per year by 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of 40 coal-fired power stations. Rabobank will also publish a climate target aligned with the UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA).
Rabobank will also aim to support 15 million smallholder farmers in developing countries to be supported in the transition to agroforestry, while Yara will aim for 150 million of hectares of farmland to benefit from more precise digital tools. The likes of Signature Agri Investments and Nuveen Natural Capital are aiming to deliver zero deforestation portfolios.
Global investors set deforestation and equality targets for farming and agriculture assets
‘A dire warning’: National climate pledges aligned with 2.5C pathway, UN reveals
If Governments deliver their Paris Agreement pledges in full, they will still produce emissions far beyond the level of reduction needed this decade to deliver the Agreement’s 1.5C pathway.
That is the conclusion of the UN’s climate change arm, UNFCCC, which has today (26 October) published its NDC Synthesis report. The report tracks the ‘gap’ between emissions reductions to date and those set to occur in future, with the level of reductions actually needed to limit global warming in line with the Paris Agreement.
According to the report, current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) made to the Paris Agreement by nations and states would put the world on course for a 2.5C temperature increase between pre-industrial times and 2100. This is provided that the plans are implemented in full and to time, which is unlikely.
The report does post some progress. Last year, UNFCC warned that global annual emissions would be 13.7% higher in 2030 than in 2010. It projected a continued increase in emissions beyond 2030. Now, the body believes that emissions will likely peak in or before 2030, with most parties having strengthened their NDCs over the past 12 months.