Fossil fuel sector should pay climate finance, EU ministers say

To attempt to address the spiralling costs of deadly heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels, the European Union is preparing to argue that the new climate finance goal cannot be made up of public funding alone. The EU "calls for additional, new and innovative sources of finance from a wide variety of sources, including from the fossil fuel sector and other high-emission sectors, to be identified and utilised to provide climate finance," EU member state foreign affairs ministers said in a joint statement, published during a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

The fossil fuel industry should help pay for fighting climate change in poorer countries under a United Nations target, European Union countries' foreign affairs ministers said on Monday.

This year's U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November, is the deadline for countries to agree a new global target for how much wealthy, industrialised nations should pay poorer ones to cope with the most severe impacts of climate change. To attempt to address the spiralling costs of deadly heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels, the European Union is preparing to argue that the new climate finance goal cannot be made up of public funding alone.

The EU "calls for additional, new and innovative sources of finance from a wide variety of sources, including from the fossil fuel sector and other high-emission sectors, to be identified and utilised to provide climate finance," EU member state foreign affairs ministers said in a joint statement, published during a meeting in Brussels on Monday. The statement, a draft of which was previously reported by Reuters, said the EU will also continue to demand that large emerging economies and those with high CO2 emissions and per-capita wealth - like China and Middle Eastern states - should pay towards the new U.N. climate finance goal.

"All countries according to their financial capabilities, including emerging economies" should contribute, it said. Beijing has opposed this in past U.N. climate talks. The question of which countries must pay is expected to be a core issue at this year's COP29 climate summit.

The new climate finance target is expected to be far larger than the existing U.N. commitment of rich countries to spend $100 billion per year from 2020, a target they failed to meet on time. The OECD has said poor nations' actual climate investment needs could total $1 trillion per year by 2025.

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