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Global — As he hosts Finance Day at COP26 today, the UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced the government’s plans to turn the UK into “the world’s first net zero aligned financial centre”, calling on other governments to follow suit. Sunak claims that the steps announced today include “historic” climate commitments from private companies and will support lower-income countries to fund green development and to help them adapt to a changing climate.
In reaction to the announcement, Tommy Vickerstaff, 350.org UK Team Lead, said:
“It is absurd and hypocritical for the Chancellor to be celebrating that the world’s biggest economies will finally reach the target of providing $100 billion in climate finance by 2023, when it should have already happened by now, and while global fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion last year. Rather than telling other countries to do more to support the world’s most vulnerable, when the UK has slashed its own aid budget, the UK should start by focusing on paying for its own historic impact.
“Far from being the world’s ‘leading green finance centre’, the City of London has a long history of being at the core of a global system that prioritises the profits of a few over the lives and livelihoods of many. It is a central driver of the climate crisis, sitting at the very heart of the global fossil fuel industry. The UK has a responsibility to stop its banks profiting from destruction, and to channel money into real solutions instead.”