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G7 countries have promised to stop all new funding for coal projects abroad later this year, in a breakthrough in the global effort to combat climate change.
“Unstoppable international coal investment must stop now,” G7 environment ministers, including John Kerry of the Biden administration and Alok Sharma of the United Kingdom, said in a statement on Friday. They pledged to take “concrete steps” to end the government’s new direct support for international thermal power generation, where no effort is made to capture emissions.
The heavily drafted statement lays the groundwork for more climate commitments when leaders from G7 countries, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden, meet in Cornwall next month.
“This commitment sends a clear signal to the world that coal is on the way out,” said Sharma, president of the COP26 climate summit. “We have all agreed to accelerate the transition out of gross coal capacity.”
Coal mining has be under pressure this week after the International Energy Agency said there was no need to build new coal mines if you want to reduce emissions in the world zero net in 2050.
G7 countries also pledged to make “accelerated efforts” to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C from pre-industrial times, a major change from previous statements that focused on limiting global warming to 2 ° C. ° C, a slightly easier goal.
“This is the first time we’ve met with a public statement about 1.5C,” said Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, who urged all major economies in the world to follow suit.
The 2015 Paris agreement obliges all signatories to limit warming to “well below” the 2Cs, and also says that the 1.5C, seen as an extensible target, would be even better.
“It simply came to our notice then. . . There’s a huge difference between 1.5C and 2C, ”said Alden Meyer, senior partner at think tank E3G.
However, ministers did not reach any concrete agreement on climate-related aid to developing countries, which is becoming one of the thorniest issues at the UN COP26 summit in November. They reiterated the goal of mobilizing $ 100 billion a year in 2025, which has not yet been met, but did not outline plans to financially help developing countries beyond 2025.
He worried that the G7 could not make a clear commitment to end international coal financing if Japan did not support the promise, as it was considered the most reluctant because of its dependence on coal.
On Friday, Kerry noted the “work we have done with Japan, and the important steps and efforts of Japan to find unity on the way forward.”
The move increases pressure on China as a major consumer of coal. The statement also came just days after the publication of the International Energy Agency’s report calling for an end to all new coal, oil and gas exploration.
Kerry said the group believed “very deeply” in the importance and importance of the IEA report.
Ministers said they would phase out new funding for international fossil fuel energy projects, “except in some limited circumstances.” But they noted that natural gas may be needed to help transition to cleaner fuels “in a limited time.”
Rebecca Newsom, head of policy at Greenpeace UK, said the action on fossil fuels “should go much further, ending all new coal, oil and gas projects at home, as well as their international funding “.
The commitment to end coal financing abroad, he added, “leaves China isolated globally with its ongoing international funding for the most polluting fossil fuel.”
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