G7: What did they decide about the thermal power plants?

Her countries Group of Seven of the most industrialized countries (G7) reached an agreement in Italy today to phase out thermal power plants without carbon dioxide capture equipment by 2035, an important step towards the end of fossil fuel use.

Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and environmental activists had called on the G7 — which includes the Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Britain and the United States— to lead by example.

The G7 agreed to “phase out coal-fired electricity generation in its energy systems during the first half of the 2030s or on a timetable consistent with keeping the limit on temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” according to carbon neutrality trajectories”, the member countries said in a statement, after the meeting of the G7 Environment and Energy Ministers in Turin (northern Italy).

It was the first major political summit on the climate since the COP28held last December in Dubai, where the world pledged to phase out coal, gas and oil.

G7 countries also said today that they are “ambitious” to reduce global plastic production in a frontal assault on the global pollution caused by the material, which is everywhere in the environment, from the top of mountains to the bottom of oceans and in the blood of men.

“We are committed to taking ambitious action throughout the life cycle of plastics to end plastic pollution and call on the international community to do the same,” they said, without elaborating.

The ministers also said that efforts to raise funds for the poorest countries to fight climate change must include all “countries that can contribute”.

Under a 1992 UN climate convention, only a very small number of high-income countries, which dominated the world economy at the time, pledged to finance the fight against global warming. These did not include China, which has now become the country with the largest greenhouse gas emissions.

Together, the G7 countries account for 38% of the global economy and are responsible for 21% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to data from the Institute for Climate Analysis for 2021.