Energy and environment ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations met Saturday in northern Japan, seeking to reconcile the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels with the urgency of ending carbon emissions to stave off the worst consequences of climate change.
The meetings in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo are aimed at forging a consensus on the best way forward, ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima in May.
“We are facing the challenge of promoting reforms to resolve climate change and achieving energy security at the same time,” economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the ministers as the meetings began.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meetings, US Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said the G-7 was “powerfully positioned to be able to lead” in the effort to stem global warming. “We appreciate Japan’s leadership and its stewardship of G-7 this year.”
But differences persist over how, and how quickly, to end carbon emissions, especially at a time when the war in Ukraine has deepened concerns over energy security, complicating that effort.
The talks in Sapporo will also focus on biodiversity loss and other global challenges. But climate change tops the agenda of the closed door meetings. At the G-7 summit last year in Germany, the countries set a common goal of achieving a fully or predominantly decarbonized electricity supply by 2035.
U.S. officials voiced support for Japan’s strategy centering on so-called clean coal, hydrogen and nuclear energy to bridge the transition to renewable energy. Others are pushing for a faster transition to renewable energy.
The head of the United Nations recently called for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040. While emissions among the G-7 nations, especially in Europe, have begun falling, they are still rising globally, especially in big, increasingly affluent economies like India and China.
The G-7 nations hope to lead by example, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
“We expect that those countries see that this can be done and the nations that have the wherewithal to make these investments to be first out give hope to others to be able to do it as the technology lowers the cost,” she said.
The US government’s approval of fossil fuel initiatives such as the Willow project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope have drawn criticism for their environmental impact and for running counter to President Joe Biden’s pledges to cut carbon emissions and move to clean energy.
While Japanese farm fields increasingly are sown with solar panels rather than crops and its gusty coastlines are studded with wind turbines, the country still expects for about 60 per cent of its energy to come from fossil fuels in 2030, with renewables accounting for up to 38 per cent. New fuels and nuclear power would account for the rest.
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