G7 Urged To Take The Lead In Phasing Out Fossil Fuels

By Charles Kennedy - May 19, 2023

• A group of nations urged the G7 to take the lead in phasing out fossil fuels.
• 
  
• The small island nations of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Saint Lucia, and Vanuatu are extremely vulnerable to climate change and have increased their influence at the UN discussions about ways to curb the rise in global temperatures.
• 
  
• The G7 leaders gathered on Friday for their three-day summit in Japan, which is expected to tackle climate issues alongside geopolitical topics.

Several countries, including the Netherlands, Chile, and New Zealand, are calling on the G7 to lead by example and take the lead in phasing out fossil fuels, according to a letter sent to the group of the world’s most industrialized nations, which Reuters has seen.

“We must bring the fossil fuel era to an end and phase out fossil fuels,” the Netherlands, Chile, New Zealand, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Saint Lucia, and Vanuatu wrote in the letter.

The small island nations of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Saint Lucia, and Vanuatu are extremely vulnerable to climate change and have increased their influence at the UN discussions about ways to curb the rise in global temperatures.

“We call on you to take the lead and work with us to agree this at COP28,” the letter reads, referring to the climate summit to be held in Dubai at the end of this year.

The G7 leaders gathered on Friday for their three-day summit in Japan, which is expected to tackle climate issues alongside geopolitical topics such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the relations of the West with China.

The G7 group was struggling to find common ground on committing to phasing out coal power generation by 2030 ahead of a summit of climate ministers in Japan in April.

While all G7 members were firm on the issue of a coal phase-out, they appeared unable to agree on a single deadline for that.  

Canada and several other G7 members committed to a coal phase-out by 2030, but others refrained from making such a commitment.

The main commitments of the G7 climate ministers last month were to work to boost solar and wind power generation capacity. They agreed to look to increase offshore wind energy generation capacity by 150 gigawatts and a similar boost to solar capacity to over 1 terawatt.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com