G7’s climate Wishlist, and the realities of efforts to cap warming

G7’s climate Wishlist, and the realities of efforts to cap warming

Subject :Environment

Section: International conventions

Context:

The G7 summit, hosted by this year’s Japanese G7 presidency, takes place in Hiroshima City, Japan from 19-21 May.

G7 climate commitments:

• The G7 stressed on the need for a global peak in emissions by 2025.
• The G7 — the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, France and Canada — claimed that their emissions had already “peaked”, and asked all “major economies” to ensure that their individual emissions do not continue to rise beyond 2025.
• Major economies” is not defined, but in the context of climate change, it usually includes countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Russia, each of which is a significant emitter
• The 2025 peak year is not mandated under the Paris Agreement or any other international decision
• Global peak of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 is not implausible. The biggest emissions year so far has been 2019 — about 55 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent
• Estimates from UN Climate Change suggest that if all countries took only those measures that they have promised so far, emissions in 2030 would be about 11% higher than 2010 levels.
• The G7 reiterated its commitment to turn net-zero by 2050, and asked all ‘major economies’ to attain net-zero status by that year and to come up with detailed road maps to reach the target
• But Scientist says that the world as a whole must become net zero by mid-century in order to meet the 1.5 degree Celsius target.
• China has said it would turn net-zero only in 2060, while India has set 2070 as the target. Some other countries, including big emitters like Russia and Saudi Arabia, have 2060 as their net-zero targets
• The G7 countries put no deadline to ending the use of fossil fuels, only saying that they were committed to accelerating the phase-out of “unabated fossil fuels” in line with 1.5 degree Celsius trajectories
• Unabated” is not clearly defined; they also said they would eliminate “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” by 2025 or earlier, without defining “inefficient subsidies”.
• The G7 also claimed they had stopped financing new fossil fuel-based energy projects “except in limited circumstances”

The G-7:

• The G-7 or ‘Group of Seven’ are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
• The G-7 nations meet at annual summits that are presided over by leaders of member countries on a rotational basis. The summit is an informal gathering that lasts two days, in which leaders of member countries discuss a wide range of global issues.
• The G-7 does not have a formal constitution or a fixed headquarters.
• The decisions taken by leaders during annual summits are non-binding.
• It is an intergovernmental organisation that was formed in 1975 by the top economies of the time as an informal forum to discuss pressing world issues.
• Canada joined the group in 1976, and the European Union began attending in 1977.
• The G-7 was known as the ‘G-8’ for several years after the original seven were joined by Russia in 1997. The Group returned to being called G-7 after Russia was expelled as a member in 2014 following the latter’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.