Christian Aid has welcomed the announcement from Barclays that it will stop all project finance to coal power and coal mining around the world, a decision which further isolates climate change laggards in the banking sector.
Christian Aid’s senior private sector advisor, Ashley Taylor, said: “Barclays, Standard Chartered, RBS and Lloyds have all ruled out this form of financing. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel and needs to be phased out of the global energy system urgently if we’re going to stop the impacts of climate change from getting worse. The report in October last year, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made that clear”
Mr Taylor added that although Barclay’s project finance announcement was positive, it had let itself down elsewhere. He said: “Although Barclays will stop coal project financing they will continue to fund coal companies and financing highly polluting tar sands oil. Clearly they still have a long way to go.”
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