G7 countries meeting in Italy decided on Tuesday to phase out coal-fired power plants without carbon capture devices by 2035, an important step towards ending the use of fossil fuels.
Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel and environmental activists had urged the G7 — which includes Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — to lead by example.
The G7 therefore agreed to “phase out current coal-fired electricity generation in (its) energy systems during the first half of the 2030s or in a timetable consistent with maintaining a limit on temperature increase at 1.5°C, in accordance with carbon neutrality trajectories,” announced the member countries in a press release, following a meeting of G7 Environment and Energy Ministers in Turin.
Some room for maneuver has been left open, since countries will be able to follow “a timetable compatible with maintaining a temperature increase limit of 1.5°C, in accordance with carbon neutrality trajectories”.
In addition, coal-fired electricity can be maintained if its emissions are captured or limited by technology, a loophole criticized by environmental advocates.
Some countries like France were campaigning for the G7 to abandon coal by 2030, but Japan in particular, where a third of its electricity comes from coal, was reluctant to set a deadline.
“It is a strong commitment, a strong signal from the G7,” however, commented to Agence France-Presse French Minister Franck Riester, who represented France in Turin on climate issues.
For Luca Bergamaschi of the climate think tank ECCO, the G7 took “a decisive step forward” in translating the Dubai agreement into national legislation, and the World Resources Institute hailed the commitment as “a glimmer of ‘hope for the rest of the world’.
On the other hand, Andreas Sieber, of the climate defense organization 350.org, judged this “important but insufficient progress”, while the Institute for Climate Analysis estimated that “2035 is too late”, judging “ notable that gas was not mentioned,” despite being the largest source of the global increase in CO2 emissions over the past decade.
In the same tone, Oil Change International considered that the G7 had “failed” its first post-COP28 test.
It was indeed the first major political meeting on climate since the conference organized in December in Dubai, where the world committed to gradually giving up coal, gas and oil.
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The G7 countries also said on Tuesday that they “aspire” to reduce global plastic production in order to tackle head-on the global pollution caused by this material, present everywhere in the environment, from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the oceans. , as well as in the blood of human beings.
A vague commitment which comes after the penultimate phase of negotiations to arrive at a global treaty to combat plastic pollution, which concluded Tuesday in Ottawa with the prospect of an agreement by the end of the year but without a ceiling for polymer production.
G7 ministers also announced that they would increase battery storage “more than sixfold” by 2030, to support electricity networks powered by renewable energy sources.
Ministers also said efforts to raise funds to help poorer countries fight climate change should include all “countries able to contribute”.
Under a 1992 UN climate convention, only a small handful of high-income countries, which dominated the global economy at the time, committed to funding the fight against global warming. This did not include China, which has now become the country with the highest greenhouse gas emissions.
“By clearly saying that we are calling on other countries to contribute, we want China to join us in this direction,” Franck Riester told AFP.
Climate activists are calling for more help for developing countries to decarbonize their industrial production, including the steel and cement sectors.
In Dubai, countries agreed to triple global renewable energy capacity and move away from fossil fuels, but financing this transition poses a problem, particularly for the poorest countries.
On Monday, at the opening of the Turin meeting, UN Climate chief Simon Stiell urged G7 countries to use their political weight, wealth and technology to move away from fossil fuels, in particular by putting pressure on their financial counterparts to achieve a “leap forward”.
Together, the G7 countries represent 38% of the global economy and are responsible for 21% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to figures for 2021 from the Institute for Climate Analysis.