A pact amongst G7 countries to stop using coal by 2035 is set to fuel a fresh battle over gas supplies.
The agreement, as reported in the Financial Times, marks the first time that rich countries – who account for over 20% of global greenhouse emissions – have fixed a timeline for ending their reliance on the fossil fuel.
But, as the paper noted, the G7 does not include the world’s two greatest coal power consumers, China and India, both of whom added the most capacity last year.
Following two days of meetings in Turin, the agreed deadline of 2035 is when G7 energy and climate ministers have pledged to eradicate the use of coal in their countries’ energy systems that don’t capture emissions. The announcement comes at a point where “surging gas supplies emerged as the next battle in climate talks,” said the FT.
During the session, ministers also set a new global target to increase electricity storage capacity sixfold from 2022 to 2030.
Whilst the negotiators pledged an end to unabated coal power “during the first half of the 2030s”, the agreement did offer flexibility for heavily coal-reliant countries, like Japan and Germany. These nations were allowed the option of “a timeline consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5C” of global warming above pre-industrial levels.
Speaking after the landmark G7 pact, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Italy’s environment and energy security minister, said industrialised countries had made a strong statement. “It is a big signal to the world to reduce coal,” he commented.
Nevertheless, the FT reported that the text kept open “the possibility of continued investment in gas.” This was despite ministers agreeing at last year’s UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai, to transition away from all fossil fuels by 2050. The burning of fossil fuels was easily the biggest contributor to global warming, the paper said.
The ministerial stance on gas was down to the “exceptional circumstances” brought about by the Russia/Ukraine war. This had necessitated moving supply elsewhere, meaning “publicly supported investments in the gas sector can be appropriate as a temporary response.”
The acid test of the G7’s credibility rested on its plans to switch to renewable energy and away from gas, said the paper. According to Luca Bergamaschi, co-founding director of the Italian climate think-tank ECCO, this would mean reducing public support for new gas investment “after two years of record high industry profits and no evidence that Europe needs new infrastructure for its energy security.”
Fears over timelines
Whilst welcoming the eradication of coal use, there was criticism from scientific experts and climate change think-tanks over the G7 timelines.
“I don’t believe there’s any move to reduce the use of fossil fuels that matches up to the nature of the crisis. And we do have a crisis,” said Sir David King, former UK chief scientific adviser and founder of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.
Highlighting this concern, the FT reported that 2023 had been the hottest on land and sea since records began. Each of the past 10 months had also seen new temperature highs. During the year to March, the global average temperature was 1.58C above the 1850 to 1900 pre-industrial average.
Canada’s climate minister, Steven Guilbeault, said the Turin agreement was evidence that the G7 had taken the COP28 summit’s outcome seriously, to transition away from all fossil fuels.
Even so, the FT reported that analysts had warned “much more work was needed to turn the plans into domestic policy,” noting that the Turin document hadn’t gone far enough on how the shift to clean energy would be properly financed.
Alden Meyer, senior associate at climate think-tank E3G, said that when ministers next meet in June, they needed to “signal their intention to help mobilise the greatly expanded financial resources needed by developing countries to both decarbonise their economies and cope with the mounting impacts of climate change.”
G7 pact to stop using coal by 2035 sets up next battle over gas supplies (ft.com)
