Posted on November, 12 2015

In a world first, the French government has announced an immediate end to export credit support to all coal power plants without operational carbon capture and storage. This decision follows two years of intensive lobbying by many organizations, especially WWF and Friends of the Earth, and represents a significant gain, as France is one of the world’s six largest coal supporters through providing export credits. This sets a global precedent that will help increase pressure on other countries. The determining factor was pressure due to the upcoming presidency of the year-end UN climate summit in Paris and the need to achieve an effective global climate deal that can avoid the worst consequences of climate change.