G-7 could roll back climate pledge over energy crisis: draft text
G-7 LEADERS are considering watering down a pledge to stop financing fossil fuel projects abroad, according to a draft text seen by AFP on Monday, as some countries struggle to replace Russian energy imports.
The Group of Seven rich nations – the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan – are still discussing the final wording of their communique at a high-level summit in the Bavarian Alps.
But environmental campaigners have grown increasingly alarmed that the war in Ukraine will prompt G-7 countries to walk back their climate promises as they confront a drop in Russian gas supplies and soaring energy costs.
“We don’t want to see any roll back,” said Friederike Roder, vice-president of the non-profit group Global Citizen. “The G-7 need to walk the talk on their own climate commitments,” she said.
The draft communique seen by AFP still includes a pledge to stop financing new, unabated fossil fuel projects abroad by the end of 2022 to help reach the goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 deg C.
The term “unabated” refers to projects that do not employ techniques to offset some of the pollution caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
But up for debate at the summit is the potential addition of a sentence that says that in the “exceptional circumstances” created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, public investment in the gas sector could be “necessary” as a “temporary response”.
Germany and Italy, both heavily reliant on Russian energy imports, were pushing hardest to make the tweak, a source told AFP, while France and Britain were resisting.
The final text is expected to be unveiled when the three-day G-7 summit ends on Tuesday.
Environmentalists said G-7 summit host Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is looking at gas projects in Senegal, risked being seen as a hypocrite on climate protection. Investing in fossil fuel in Senegal is clearly in Germany’s own interests, Roder said.
“For Senegal it would be better to invest in renewables. Not big projects that will be outdated soon.”
Any weakening of commitments agreed at last year’s UN COP26 climate summit would be a setback in the fight against climate change, campaigners warned. “This could really undermine the 1.5 deg C limit,” said Christoph Bals from the NGO Germanwatch. AFP
KEYWORDS IN THIS ARTICLE
BT is now on Telegram!
For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes
International
China’s April industrial output rises 6.7%, beats expectations
Crypto boom, erratic rain spark outages in Laos, Asia’s clean power export hub
China’s first special bond sale likely to see solid demand
IMF knocks Biden’s China tariffs as risk to US, world growth
US SEC updates customer data hacking rules for Wall Street
Hong Kong’s shaky crypto ETF debuts dent global hub aspirations