Fourteen socialist and environmental mayors from big cities ask the banks, at the start of the COP27 in Egypt, to stop financing fossil fuels to move towards “a more sustainable economy”, this Saturday in a column published on the JDD website .
The text is signed by the PS mayors of Paris Anne Hidalgo and Rennes Nathalie Appéré, and the mayors of the EELV of Lyon Grégory Doucet, Strasbourg Jeanne Barseghian, Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic and Grenoble Eric Piolle.
“We formally call on financial actors to stop supporting coal, oil and gas development,” they write.
In fact, “fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change, their extractions are often accompanied by environmental and biodiversity devastation, a lack of respect for human rights and an intensification of conflicts”, they advocate.
Put the banks in competition on the issue
While consuming coal, oil and gas from currently exploited mines and wells would lead to warming well above 1.5°C, financial actors continue to massively support companies developing new oil and gas projects. these mayors.
“We act at our level,” they say, “promoting sustainable development that respects the environment (…) at the local level, but also financing these actions thanks to more responsible banking partners.”
Thus, explain these mayors, “when we get into debt, we put and will now put the different banks in competition” also on “criteria relating to the end of support for the development of fossil fuels and tax havens, and in favor of equality between women and mens”.
Elected officials hope “that more and more communities will join” them.
Source: BFM TV
