Recognizing the current global energy crisis and ongoing economic turmoil, “we reaffirm our commitment to accelerate the clean energy transition, to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, at the latest.”
The Ministers of Energy and the Environment of the G7 countries put it on paper in the final document of the meeting dedicated to environmental and energy issues held in Sapporo, Japan. Although the climate policymakers of the Seven have promised to accelerate the transition to a cleaner energy system based on renewables, they have not, on the other hand, set a precise timetable for achieving the elimination of coal-fired power plants , one of the issues at the center of the discussions, despite the fact that the document underlines the need to create “a mainly decarbonised energy system” by 2035.
The Italian Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, said he was “satisfied with the results achieved”, and underlined “the attention paid to environmental issues and the protection of biodiversity”. An important result, according to Pichetto, is also “the goal of reducing further plastic pollution to zero by 2040”.
Executive Minister Meloni also stated that Italy appreciated the recognition, in the transport sector, “of routes that enhance the specificity of the various countries, including, for Italy, the use of sustainable biofuels”.
Host country Japan instead obtained the support of the G7 countries for its national strategy, which emphasizes the role of so-called ‘clean coal’, hydrogen and nuclear energy to ensure its energy security without giving up on the transition ecological. A transition which, according to what was declared to the Associated Press by the US special envoy for the climate, John Kerry, “cannot foresee steps backwards”.
For Kerry, irreversible market mechanisms have been triggered in recent years. “Private companies have made big bets on the future and have no intention of canceling them,” he pointed out, adding that the world “is in a different position than it was one, two and three years ago” in terms of efforts to reduce emissions, and that if countries keep their promise to phase out polluting fossil fuels “the world will be able to limit average global warming to 1.5 degrees”, i.e. the target set by the Paris Agreements.