The Group of Seven (G7) rich nations have agreed to speed up the development of renewable energy and called for reduced natural gas consumption as they aim to ramp up the phasing out of fossil fuels, the group said in a communique issued on Sunday, April 16, 2023.
While members recognised the need to reduce gas consumption, however, they also said investment in the sector can help address potential energy shortfalls, the communique showed.
Ministers from the G7 group of advanced democracies gathered in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo for two days of meetings on climate, energy and environmental policy. The issues of renewable sources of fuel and energy security have taken on new urgency following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The members also agreed to accelerate “the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels” – the burning of fossil fuels without using technology to capture the resulting C02 emissions – to achieve net zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest.
But activists have described this as a demonstration of a lack of political will by the most advanced economies to tackle the root cause of the climate crisis.
While they are said to represent the group of countries historically responsible for climate change but also those with the most resources to face it, the G7 ministers are accused of refusing to agree on an end to any new investment in fossil fuels.
Their decision not only contradicts last year’s G7 commitment to end support for fossil fuels by the end of 2022, but also the repeated recommendations of the international scientific community, recently reinforced by the IPCC Synthesis Report, stating that any investments in new coal, oil or gas projects will doom the chance of reaching the Paris agreement goals.
The group alleges that, behind announcements of support for renewables, G7 ministers’ decision includes loophole tactics in order to allow new coal production with unproven carbon capture and storage technologies, and uses the argument of the energy fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to support new gas enterprises.
Alex Rafalowicz, Executive Director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said that investments in the gas or any other fossil fuel sector cross the redline of the Paris climate goals. There is no fossil fuel production that can be implemented in a manner consistent with climate objectives. Canada, the UK, and the US are among the top five largest fossil fuel producers and it is their responsibility, as members of the G7, to act as true climate leaders by stopping to grow a problem they have the means to curb. It is time for them to align with science as well as with the efforts of Global South countries in the Pacific or Colombia who are working concretely to preserve our common future.
Harjeet Singh, Head of Global Political Strategy, Climate Action Network International also said that while G7 ministers recognised the need to scale up renewable energy, their commitment to phase-out of fossil fuels is frivolous and full of loopholes. The calls from scientists and activists to urgently phase out of fossil fuels and support a just and green transition in developing countries, seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. The rich industrialised countries are also shirking on their responsibility to provide adequate finance to help poorer nations adapt to and recover from the losses and damages caused by climate disasters.
