Ed Davey has announced the UK will stop financing new coal-fired power plants overseas with public money, stating the practice was ‘completely illogical’ alongside decarbonisation efforts. The Energy and Climate Change Secretary is attending this week’s international climate change talks in Warsaw, which he says are ‘absolutely critical to getting a climate deal in 2015′.

20 November 2013 – All nations at this week’s international climate change talks must leave Warsaw with a clear political understanding that a new global climate deal will be agreed in 2015, UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey told the conference today.

Mr Davey said: “This week in Warsaw is absolutely critical to getting a climate deal in 2015. No one should leave this conference without the clear understanding and agreement that from here, we must make sure that when we arrive in Paris in 2015 we are ready to strike a deal.

“The UK will be working as part of the EU, to gain momentum for a deal with a push for 50 per cent reduction in European emissions. But we will need to see similar ambitions and commitment from other developed and emerging partners before we can sign.”

Mr Davey also announced that the UK will join the United States in agreeing to end support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas, except in rare circumstances in which the poorest countries have no feasible alternative. The two governments will work together to secure the support of other countries and Multilateral Development Banks to adopt similar policies.

Mr Davey said: “It is completely illogical for countries like the UK and the US to be decarbonising our own energy sectors while paying for coal-fired power plants to be built in other countries.

“It undermines global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change and stores up a future financial time bomb for those countries who would have to undo their reliance on coal-fired generation in the decades ahead, as we are having to do today.”

“Like the US, the UK recognises that there will be exceptions. We need to take account of new technologies such as Carbon Capture Storage and the very poorest countries where there are no alternatives. But many developing countries will soon find solar and similar energy technologies will become cheaper not just cleaner.”

Recognising the increasing impact of climate change on the world’s poorest countries, Mr Davey has also pledged £50million from the UK’s International Climate Fund to help more than 860,000 people adapt to those impacts. He called on developed countries to scale up their climate finance commitments.

Mr Davey continued: “The most vulnerable countries are already feeling the impact of climate change and we know that is going to increase. As we have seen extreme weather events can have disastrous consequences for millions people in developing countries and we have a moral duty to help those countries prepare today for the climate changes ahead.”

“Our climate change challenge is both to help prevent further damaging climate change, but also to help the poorest people from the effects of climate change that is already happening. This funding to help people adapt to our harsher climate conditions and this is a vital part of tackling poverty worldwide.”

Through this funding 25 more projects in the least developed countries will better protect people from climate impacts by providing grants to vulnerable communities to help them improve water management, irrigation and water supply infrastructure; invest in flood protection and drought resistant crops, and develop better weather forecasting and early warning systems.

For further information, please visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change or www.unfccc.int/2860.php