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Talk is cheap: how G20 Governments are financing climate disaster

Talk is cheap: how G20 Governments are financing climate disaster The best available science shows an urgent need to keep global temperature increases below 1.5°C to avoid severe disruptions to people and ecosystems. Recent analysis shows that burning the reserves in already operating oil and gas fields alone, even if coal mining is completely phased out, would take the world beyond 1.5°C of warming. The potential carbon emissions from all fossil fuels in the world’s already operating fields and mines would take us well beyond 2°C. Despite this reality, the same governments that have signed on to the Paris Agreement on climate change – which agrees to hold global warming to well below 2°C and to strive to limit warming to 1.5°C – continue to provide sweetheart loans, guarantees, and other forms of preferential financing to fossil fuel projects that could cause the world to blow past those climate targets. This analysis shows that G20 governments are providing nearly 4 times more public finance to fossil fuels than to clean energy.