Ahead of the first meeting of this group of signatories expected today, a group of 57 civil society organizations from every continent sent a letter to the UK government with recommendations for how to ensure the commitment is effective.

"President Biden promised to end the leasing program entirely due to its deadly threat to the climate, but Interior's recommendations fall far short of that goal — and ring particularly hollow days after the largest lease sale in U.S. history," said Rees.

The time has come for ambitious E3F action, not just ambitious words. We do not want to see a year of vague compromises and exceptions that water the commitment down and lead to continued support for fossil fuels, such as gas - as this not only puts the climate at risks, it also locks countries in the south into fossil dependence with all the economic risks that come along.

A policy brief released today by OCI and ODI shows that despite their commitment to align financial flows with climate goals under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, the E3F countries still provided €20 billion in export finance for fossil fuel projects abroad between 2018 and 2020.

"After 30 years, governments finally had the guts to talk openly about the problem of fossil fuel dependence at COP26, but failed to encode a bold solution in their final outcomes."