EU bank to focus solely on clean energy sources starting in 2022

(CNN Business) The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced Thursday that it will end financing for fossil fuel energy projects at the end of 2021, adding in a statement that future financing will focus on accelerating innovations in clean energy.

"We will stop financing fossil fuels and we will launch the most ambitious climate investment strategy of any public financial institution anywhere," EIB President Werner Hoyer said Thursday.

The EIB is the European Union's lending arm. Its new energy lending policy will "unlock 1 trillion euros of climate action and environmental sustainable investment" in order to enable energy decarbonisation, and meet a 32% renewable energy share throughout the European Union by 2030.

"Climate is the top issue on the political agenda of our time...The EU bank has been Europe's climate bank for many years. Today it has decided to make a quantum leap in its ambition," Hoyer added.

EIB Vice-President Andrew McDowell also called for urgent action to counter the rise in carbon emission, outlining the EU bank's plans to "drive global efforts" to reduce dependence on carbon energy.

"The EIB's ambitious energy lending policy adopted today is a crucial milestone in the fight against global warming...we have reached a compromise to end the financing by the EU Bank of unabated fossil fuel projects, including gas, from the end of 2021," McDowell added.