Leaders of G7 nations on Sunday pledged to stop new support for unabated international coal-fired power projects by the end of 2021. The UK, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy will no longer offer new direct government support for these projects, including through Official Development Assistance, investment, export finance, as well as financial and trade promotion.
In addition, the UK, the US, Canada, and Germany plan to provide up to $2 billion to support developing nations shift away from unabated coal under the initiative from the Climate Investments Funds. G7 also launched an Industrial Decarbonization Agenda to speed up innovation and adoption of decarbonisation technology and synchronise standards in hard-to-abate industries like chemicals, petrochemicals, cement, and iron and steel.
The summit held in Cornwall in the UK also marked the first time G7 leaders agreed to align their climate goals with a limit on global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The world’s wealthiest nations also agreed to halve their combined emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero no later than 2050. The group also announced the “Build Back Better for the World” program to provide developing countries with faster access to G7 financing.
