This is the first time that the seven industrial powers (United States, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany) of the G7 have jointly committed to such an objective to fight against global warming.
“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.
To achieve this goal, the countries pledge “to support the acceleration of the global phase-out of coal” and to “rapidly develop the technologies and policies necessary for the transition to clean energy”.
And this even if the war in Ukraine and soaring energy prices risk reshuffling the cards.
Japan turnaround
The ministers also promised to end foreign financing of fossil fuel projects without carbon capture technology by "the end of 2022".
This announcement was possible thanks to a reversal of Japan, the last country of the group which refused to engage on this question.
Twenty countries, including the other G7 states, had already signed a declaration to this effect last November, during COP 26 in Glasgow.
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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 absurd and this absurdity must be eliminated”, commented Robert Habeck, German Minister for the Economy and Climate.
Still, according to the NGO Oil Change International, between 2018 and 2020, the G20 countries financed such projects to the tune of 188 billion dollars, mainly via multilateral development banks.