The G7 energy and environment ministers have agreed this Sunday to accelerate efforts to abandon the use of coal and other fossil fuels, although they have not set a new specific deadline for it, as several of the member countries aspired to do. cluster.
"We underscore our commitment, in the context of global efforts, to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels to achieve net-zero emissions energy systems by 2050," says the joint statement adopted by the G7 ministers at the end of of their meeting held in Sapporo (northern Japan).
The document does not accompany this promise with a specific deadline before 2050, as several of the G7 members had claimed, due to disagreement with other countries such as the host, whose energy supply depends highly on coal and the importation of gas and Petroleum.
The ministers call to diversify the sources of energy supply and to quickly develop "clean, safe, sustainable and affordable energy" within the agreed global action framework for 2050 and aimed at limiting the planetary increase in temperatures to 1.5 °C.
The G7 has also shown its willingness to work with other countries "to phase out new coal-based power generation projects as soon as possible, to speed up the transition to clean energy in a fair way."
The declaration nevertheless recognizes "the importance of national energy security, its affordability and its resistance", as well as "the need to confront energy poverty and offer support to workers, regions and communities" affected.
This is interpreted as an allusion to industrializing countries, and in particular to emerging economies in Asia that are highly dependent on coal, like Japan.
The group of countries that make up Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States have also pledged to take measures to improve energy supply chains, which have been disrupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and reiterated their support for Kiev in the face of the neighboring country's aggression.
