G7 vows to work towards cleaner, renewable energy with no deadline

The Group of Seven (G7) rich nations’ energy and environment ministers, on Sunday (April 16) vowed to ramp up efforts and work toward cleaner and renewable energy while also phasing out power plants using coal, in a statement, following discussions in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo. However, they could not decide on a deadline to achieve said goals.

The 36-page communique

After two days of discussions between the environment and energy ministers of the bloc, they released a 36-page statement outlining some of their commitments ahead of the G7 summit in Hiroshima set to take place next month.

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“Recognizing the current global energy crisis and economic disruptions, we reaffirm our commitment to accelerating the clean energy transition to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 at the latest,” said the statement.

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The countries have also pledged to contribute to “expanding renewable energy globally” and reaffirmed their commitment to “achieving a fully or predominantly decarbonised power sector by 2035.”

This includes phasing out domestic “unabated” coal power generation – plants that do not capture emissions and prevent them from escaping into the atmosphere and also encouraged other countries to follow suit.

However, the G7 ministers have not given a deadline for phasing out coal-fired power plants, which has been a long-standing issue as many countries including Japan still heavily rely on this method for generating power. Tokyo relies on coal for nearly one-third of its power generation.

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The G7 nations which include countries like Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States,account for some 40 per cent of the world’s economic activity and are also responsible for nearly a quarter of global carbon emissions. The countries are also committed to ending plastic pollution and reducing additional plastic pollution to zero by 2040.

Investment in critical minerals

The G7 nations also acknowledged the importance of critical minerals for the transition to clean energy and reaffirmed the “need to prevent economic and security risks caused by vulnerable supply chains, monopolisation, lack of diversification of existing suppliers of critical minerals.”

In this context, they have also decided to boost the development of new mines and supply chains for critical minerals in a “responsible manner that promotes transparency and traceability” to keep up with demand. It added, “Currently $13 billion fiscal support that can be used for domestic and foreign projects is prepared across the G7 countries.”

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Indianenvironmentminister's address

Indian Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav also addressed the plenary session of the G7 ministers’ meeting in Japan and spoke about how economic development is the first defence against climate change. He also took to Twitter and wrote, “The global goal of reaching net zero by 2050 needs enhanced emission descaling by developed nations.”

(With inputs from agencies)

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