The G7 countries pledged on Friday to decarbonize the majority of their electricity sector “by 2035”as well as putting an end this year to all international financing of projects linked to fossil fuels without carbon capture techniques. “We are committed to achieving a majority carbon-free electricity sector by 2035”they said in a statement released after a meeting of climate and energy ministers in Berlin.
New common objective
To achieve this goal, countries commit “to support the acceleration of the global exit from coal” and to “rapidly develop the technologies and policies necessary for the transition to clean energy”. This is the first time that the seven industrial powers (United States, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany) have committed together to such an objective. Ministers also promised to end overseas funding of fossil fuel projects without carbon capture technique from here “end of 2022”.
Japan turnaround
This announcement was made possible thanks to a reversal of Japan, the last country of the group who refused to engage on this issue. Twenty countries, including the other G7 states, had already signed a declaration to this effect last November, during COP 26 in Glasgow. “It is good that Japan, the world’s largest financier of fossil fuels, has joined the other G7 countries”comments to AFP Alden Meyer, expert for the European Think Tank E3G.
The G7 states also recalled their common objective of eliminating all direct subsidies to fossil fuels “by 2025”. “Rewarding climate-damaging behavior with subsidies (…) is nonsense and this nonsense must be eliminated”, commented Robert Habeck the German Minister of Economy and Climate, during a press conference on Friday. According to the NGO Oil Change International, between 2018 and 2020, the G20 countries alone financed such projects to the tune of 188 billion dollars, mainly via multilateral development banks.