G7 must lead the way to fight global warming: UN climate chief May 1, 2024

G7 Climate Meeting

By AFP - Agence France Presse

G7 must lead the way to fight global warming: UN climate chief

On Tuesday, UN climate chief Simon Stiell told the G7 countries that it was "utter nonsense" to claim that they could not take bolder action to combat global warming.

The G7 is holding its first major political meeting on climate since the annual UN talks in Dubai in November.

"I often hear in forums like this that 'we can't go too far, lest we predetermine the outcome of the negotiations'" at the UN level, Stiell told the environment ministers gathered in Turin.

"It is utter nonsense to claim that the G7 cannot - or should not - lead the way to bolder climate action," said Stiell, who heads the UN's climate change organization.

The Group of Seven industrialized countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, are meeting in the northern Italian city for two days of negotiations on the environment and climate.

Stiell said there is "no reason" why the world's largest developed economies "cannot collaborate to take bolder steps", which would "boost what is possible in the global climate negotiations".

"G7 leadership, especially through much deeper emissions cuts and bigger and better climate finance this year, is not only entirely feasible," he said. "It is essential if we are to avoid a global economic disaster."

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to limit global warming to "well below" 2°C above pre-industrial times, with a safer limit of 1.5°C if possible.

To keep the 1.5ºC limit in place, the UN panel of climate experts said that emissions need to be cut by almost half this decade.

But they continue to rise, driven mainly by the burning of fossil fuels.

In Dubai, countries agreed to triple global renewable energy capacity this decade and to "transition" away from fossil fuels, but the agreement lacked important details on financing.

Who pays for what has long been a point of contention, as the poorest countries cannot afford to foot the bill?

Stiell called on the G7 environment ministers to lean on their fellow finance ministers and treasurers so that they see "a quantum leap in climate finance as an essential business".

"Challenging budget conditions are not an acceptable excuse for failing to deliver on substantial new pledges of public climate finance," he said.

ide/ar/ach