European Investment Bank President Werner Hoyer urged faster action to combat global warming and the extreme weather events it causes, as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a dire new warning in its latest report.
“We need to invest massively in climate adaptation and mitigation,” said President Hoyer. “The quicker we make our transition to a green economy, the less disruptive it will be and the quicker humanity will be set up to cope with the kind of weather that’s causing such destruction in Europe and elsewhere.”Last year, the European Investment Bank unveiled its Climate Bank Roadmap, its detailed plan for an increase in climate and environmental sustainability investment to 50% of its annual lending by 2025 from 40% in 2020. That’s part of the EU bank’s commitment to support €1 trillion of climate and environmental sustainability investment by the end of the decade.
The aim of this massive investment is to keep the rise in world temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, the goal set in the Paris Agreement. The UN report, released today, says that temperatures will have hit the 1.5 degree mark by 2040, unless carbon emissions are sharply reduced. The attribution of extreme heatwaves, heavy rain, droughts and tropical cyclones to human activity has strengthened since the panel’s last report.
“Time is running out and we need to move fast,” President Hoyer said. “If there’s anyone out there who refuses to believe the hard evidence of the UN panel, I would point them to the devastating impact of the fires and floods afflicting humanity right before their eyes. Believe that.”