After a two-day meeting in Sapporo, Japan, G7 environment and energy ministers failed to agree on a timeline for replacing coal-fired power plants.
In their 36-page statement, ministers reiterated their goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and promised to cooperate to end the development of new coal-fired power plant projects that take no action to offset their gas emissions Greenhouse effect.
Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told Japanese media last week that he hoped the transition out of coal would be firmly supported in the joint statement.
Ministers instead reaffirmed the need to form a largely carbon-neutral energy sector by 2035, which leaves the door open for the exploitation of fossil fuels.
The science is clear, countries, especially G7 members, need to do more and faster to tackle the climate crisis and maintain the Paris Agreement temperature target.
In a Twitter post on Sunday, Mr. Guilbeault praised the common will of G7 members to accelerate the energy transition, but also stressed the need to take quick action, because “for Canada, it has never been equally urgent to phase out coal-fired electricity generation by 2030”.
“The science is clear, countries, especially G7 members, need to do more and faster to tackle the climate crisis and maintain the Paris Agreement temperature target,” he wrote.
Mr. Guilbeault tried to obtain a consensus to end the use of coal power by 2030, which Canada has promised to do, but the G7 environment ministers have had difficulty in agreeing. hear on the issue, countries like Japan still dependent on electricity generated from coal.
Japan has instead championed its own energy strategy, which involves the use of what the country calls “clean coal”, whose carbon emissions are captured.
With Associated Press