Treasury Secretary urges smart climate investment

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently indicated that she will encourage multilateral development banks to stop funding fossil fuel projects, saying she would ask them to "increase their climate ambition" to support the Paris Agreement on carbon emissions reductions.

Yellen said that lenders, including the World Bank, needed to boost efforts to encourage more private-sector climate-friendly development.

"I plan to shortly convene the heads of the MDBs to articulate our expectations that the MDBs align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement and net-zero goals as urgently as possible," said Yellen, at a G20 climate forum.

"We also expect them to take steps to more effectively mobilize private capital so that developing countries can increasingly benefit from private sector pledges to support climate-aligned and sustainable investments," Yellen said.