(Sapporo) The industrialized countries of the G7 pledged on Sunday to “accelerate” their “exit” from fossil fuels in all sectors, but without setting a new deadline, and decided to jointly aim for zero new plastic pollution by 2040.
Their promise to get out of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) does not, however, concern those that are accompanied by CO capture and storage devices.2specifies the joint communiqué of the Ministers of Climate, Energy and the Environment of the G7, meeting since Saturday in Sapporo (northern Japan).
Instead of a precise timetable, these major industrialized countries (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Canada) enshrine this goal more vaguely in their efforts to achieve energy carbon neutrality by 2050 ” at the latest “.
They had already committed last year to mostly decarbonize their electricity sectors by 2035, a goal reconfirmed on Sunday.
Sign of difficult negotiations, they failed to commit in particular to a date for the exit from coal in the electricity sector, while the United Kingdom, supported by France, had proposed the deadline of 2030 .
At the environmental level, the G7 countries have promised to reduce their additional plastic pollution to zero by 2040, thanks in particular to the circular economy, the reduction or abandonment of disposable and non-recyclable plastics.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A negotiation session of the Ministers of Climate, Energy and the Environment of the G7, meeting since Saturday in Sapporo, Japan.
Germany, France, the EU, the UK and Canada are already part of an international coalition that made the same commitment last year. But this is the first time that the United States, Japan and Italy have joined them.
This is thus a “strong signal” before the next negotiation session for an international treaty on plastic at the end of May in Paris, welcomed in a press release the French Minister for Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu.
The stakes are crucial: the quantity of plastic waste has doubled in the world in 20 years, and only 9% of it is actually recycled, according to the OECD. And the UN estimates that the amount of plastic dumped into the oceans will nearly triple by 2040.
“Important point of support”
The decision to get out of all fossil fuels marks a “strong step forward”, also welcomed in an interview with AFP the French Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
“This is an important point of support for being able to expand this approach” to the G20 in India and to the UN climate conference (COP28) in Dubai at the end of the year, she said, while admitting that these future global negotiations “are not going to be easy”.
The members of the G7 had to show unity and voluntarism after the last alarming summary report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in March.
According to the IPCC, global warming caused by human activity will reach 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era by the years 2030-2035. This further jeopardizes the objective of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit the rise in temperatures to this level, or at least significantly below 2°C.
The G7 also reaffirmed on Sunday its commitment to work with other developed countries to raise 100 billion dollars a year for emerging countries against global warming, a promise dating from 2009 and which was initially to be kept from 2020.
A summit to improve access to climate finance for developing countries, a sensitive and crucial point, is notably scheduled for the end of June in Paris.
“It still lacks ambition”
Due to the very tense global geopolitical context with the war in Ukraine since last year and Japan’s conservative proposals on natural gas, environmental NGOs feared that the Sapporo meeting would lead to a regression.
The G7 recognized as last year that investments in natural gas “may be appropriate” to help some countries through the current energy crisis. But the primacy of a “clean” energy transition and the need to reduce gas demand were underlined at the same time.
The other Japanese proposal to have ammonia and hydrogen recognized as “clean” co-fuels for thermal power stations was also surrounded by safeguards. These technologies must be developed from “low carbon and renewable” sources, insisted the G7.
However, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura said he was satisfied that the G7 had recognized “diverse paths to achieve carbon neutrality”.
Asked by AFP, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol also welcomed a message from the G7 “combining our concerns for energy security while providing a roadmap in the face of the climate crisis”.
Environmental NGOs, on the other hand, were disappointed. “No offense to the rhetorical games of G7 ministers, new investments in gas […] cannot be compatible” with their climate objectives, criticized Collin Rees of Oil Change International.
“There is something positive” in the announcements of the G7 “but it still lacks ambition” up to the challenges, also estimated Daniel Read of Greenpeace.