The UN just slammed the G7 for completely falling short on tackling the climate crisis

On Monday 29 April the Group of Seven (G7) convened for two days of climate crisis talks in Turin. This was their first big political meeting since the UN’s annual climate negotiations in November.

Environment ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US held discussions after the UN warned that excuses for failing to take bold actions on the climate crisis were ‘’not acceptable’’. This is off the back of a new report by science and policy institute Climate Analytics, which shows the G7 is falling far short of its targets.  

The G7 makes up around 38% of the global economy and was responsible for 21% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, according to the institute.

G7: a bunch of underachievers?

Not a single member of the G7 is on course to meet their emission reduction targets for 2030. Shockingly, they are only set to achieve “at best around half of what is needed”. 

This was despite the fact that all G7 nations suffered wildfires, flooding and a variety of other climate crisis-driven disasters in 2023.

Whilst France is expected to push for the G7 to phase out coal by 2030, Japan is reluctant to set a date. Meanwhile, Germany – Europe’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is unwilling to move away from gas, as is Italy. Of course, this is ironic given the devastating forest fires that ravaged Italy last summer. 

And it seems UN climate chief, Simon Stiell agrees. On Monday, he told G7 countries it was “utter nonsense” to argue they couldn’t take bolder actions to tackle the crisis. 

He told environment ministers in Turin: 

I often hear in forums like this one that, ‘we cannot possibly move too far forward, lest we predetermine the outcome of negotiations'” at the UN level

It is utter nonsense to claim the G7 cannot — or should not — lead the way on bolder climate actions.

Stiell also said there was “no reason” why the world’s most developed economies “cannot collaborate to make bolder strides”. This would “boost what is possible within the global climate negotiations”.

He continued: 

G7 leading from the front — particularly through much deeper emissions cuts, and bigger and better climate finance this year — is not only entirely doable.

It is essential, if we are to avoid a global economic disaster.

Excuses are not an option

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries agree to: 

Substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to hold global temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change

This decade, we need to slash emissions in half for this to become a reality.

Alarmingly though, they continue to rise and of course, this is powered by the burning of fossil fuels. 

Last year in Dubai, countries agreed to ‘’transition away’’ from fossil fuels and triple global renewables capacity this decade. However, climate think tank Ember has produced new analysis on the G7’s renewables progress. Currently they are falling short of meeting their tripling commitment and are just on track to double capacity. 

Notably also, nations failed to agree important details on funding. At the talks in Turin, countries will likely make more commitments on funds for adaptation to climate change. Italy has said the G7 would discuss ‘’innovative’’ financing models amid calls for more accessible finance for vulnerable countries.

This has long been a sticking point. As the Canary has previously reported, poorer countries are unable to foot the bill and rich countries often trap them in debt, which they further exploit, in the pursuit of fossil fuels. 

But as Stiell suggested:

Challenging budget conditions’ is not an acceptable excuse for failing to deliver substantial new public climate finance pledges.

It is clear that countries in the Global North should be using their political clout, technologies and wealth to push forwards in the pursuit to phase out fossil fuels. But, it does throw up some questions. What is the point of the G7 when we are not seeing concrete progress towards targets, and is it just for show? Ultimately, the only solution to the climate crisis is real action. 

Feature image via U.S. Department of State/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Additional reporting via Agence France-Press