$4.5 bln climate fund for 150 cities

PARIS

The World Bank Group and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy have announced a $4.5 billion-fund for 150 cities around the world to fight the effects of climate change.

The announcement was made at the One Planet Summit in Paris, which was held to mark the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gases on Dec. 12.

The fund aims to support cities in fighting the increasing threats of climate change, according to the World Bank.

French President Emmanuel Macron, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the head of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, hosted the summit meeting.

Jim announced to loud applause that the lender would “no longer finance upstream oil and gas after 2019” in a move hailed by Greenpeace as a “damning vote of no confidence to the future of the fossil fuel industry.”

“The battle for climate change has not yet been won, there is no plan B,” said Guterres.

“This summit is a new phase in our common struggle,” said Macron.

“We are losing the battle” against climate change, he said.

“We are not moving fast enough.”

Guterres said continued fossil-fuel subsidies amounted to humanity “investing in its own doom.”

“We are in a war for the very existence of life on our planet as we know it,” Guterres told more than 50 heads of state including Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto, Britain’s Theresa May and Spain’s Mariano Rajoy, at the summit.

Former U.S Secretary of State John Kerry said it is an “embarrassment that the U.S withdrew from the Paris Agreement, adding that this decision was made by U.S President Donald Trump, and not by Americans. The Paris Agreement, signed by 195 countries in April 2016, aims to fight climate change.