The G7 countries announced on Sunday April 16 their intention to reduce their plastic pollution to zero by 2040 following a meeting of their climate, energy and environment ministers in Sapporo (north of the Japan). And this, in particular thanks to the circular economy, the reduction or the abandonment of disposable and non-recyclable plastics. This is an “ambitious” goal, welcomed German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke in particular during a press conference.
The ministers of the countries of the group also undertook to “accelerate” their “exit” from fossil fuels in all sectors, but without setting a new deadline. This new objective does not concern fossil fuels with CO2 capture and storage devices. The G7 countries (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Canada) confine themselves to stressing that this objective is part of their efforts to achieve energy carbon neutrality by 2050 “at the latest “.
Last year, the G7 had already committed to decarbonizing its electricity sector for the most part by 2035, a goal reconfirmed on Sunday. Sign of their difficult negotiations, the G7 did not manage to commit specifically to a date for phasing out coal for their electricity generation, while the United Kingdom, supported by France, had proposed the deadline for 2030.
The decision to get out of all fossil fuels nevertheless marks a “strong step forward”, reacted to 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 estimated, “while admitting that these future global negotiations are not going to be obvious.”
The club of the main industrialized countries had to show unity and voluntarism after the last alarming summary report of the intergovernmental group 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 from the years 2030-2035. This further jeopardizes the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit the rise in temperatures to this level, or at least well 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. improving access to climate finance for developing countries, a sensitive and crucial point for the success of COP28, is notably planned for the end of June in Paris.
Due to the very tense global geopolitical context with the war in Ukraine since last year, and conservative proposals from Japan, which notably wanted the G7 to endorse upstream investments in gas, environmental NGOs feared that the Sapporo meeting would not result in a regression of commitments on the climate. In a tone similar to that of last year, the G7 acknowledged in its communiqué that investments in natural gas “could be appropriate” to help certain countries avoid possible energy shortages linked to the war in Ukraine.
But at the same time, the G7 stressed the primacy of a “clean” energy transition and the need to reduce gas demand. Japan’s other proposal to have ammonia and hydrogen recognized as “clean” co-fuels for thermal power plants was also surrounded by safeguards. These technologies must be developed from “low carbon and renewable” sources, insisted the G7.