BEIJING, April 30 (Xinhua) -- British Secretary of State for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, Andrew Bowie, who is attending the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in the northern Italian city of Turin, was the first to tell U.S. media on April 29 that representatives of the seven countries at the meeting had agreed on a timetable for phasing out coal-fired power plants and would commit to achieving this goal by 2035. However, the Italian side called this deadline "only hypothetical".
"2035" node: there is a technical consensus, but the political need to be coordinated
The G7 meeting will be held from 29 to 30 May and will be hosted by Italy, which holds the rotating presidency. On the first day of the agenda, G7 ministers in charge of energy and ecological transition agreed to phase out coal-fired power generation in the first half of the 30s, according to Bowie on the sidelines of the meeting.
A European source told AFP that the latest version of the draft G7 statement does contain the timetable in which the G7 countries commit to committing to "phasing out existing coal-fired power generation in their energy systems by 2035, or setting a timetable that would make the 1.5C warming target achievable and consistent with the country's path to net-zero emissions".
The Paris Agreement sets out a global goal for mitigating climate change: by the end of this century, the international community should limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and strive to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
However, when Agence France-Presse (AFP) asked Italy's Minister of Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Piquetto Flatin, about the 2035 deadline, the latter said that the timetable was only "hypothetical" and that "there is a technical agreement on this, but we are still working on political agreement".
G7 Emissions Reduction Progress Lags Behind UN Officials Call for "No More Excuses"
The G7 includes seven highly industrialized countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan. Italy, the host, hopes that the meeting will serve as a "strategic link" between the two conferences of the parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change last year and this year.
At COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last December, parties pledged to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030 to accelerate the energy transition. According to the research data cited by the conference, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 28% in 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement's "2 degrees Celsius" temperature control target, and 42 percent to achieve the "1.5 degrees Celsius" target. COP29 is scheduled to take place in Azerbaijan in November this year.
According to 2021 data released last week by Climate Analysis, a German nonprofit that studies climate policy, the G7 accounts for about 38% of the world's economies and 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, at the current pace of emissions reductions in these seven countries, none of them is likely to meet the 2030 emissions reduction target set by COP28 in Dubai.
On the 29th, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) once again called on the G7 to formulate a "far more ambitious emission reduction plan than the current one". "We've seen islands being swallowed up by the sea, and record-breaking temperatures have made it unbearable for activities like farming. The statement reads.
Simon Steele, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also at the meeting in Turin on the same day, urged the G7 to use its political clout, wealth and technological advantages to phase out fossil fuels as soon as possible. "The claim that the G7 can't – or shouldn't – model bolder climate action is complete nonsense. ”
For G7 members, the immediate priority is to "take a big step forward in climate finance" and should no longer use "tight budgets" as an excuse for their country's lack of investment in climate action, Steele said. (Shen Min)