According to a statement released on Sunday, the Group of Seven wealthy nations have committed to expediting the development of renewable energy and decreasing natural gas usage in an effort to accelerate the elimination of fossil fuels.
While recognizing the need to decrease gas consumption, the group’s statement also acknowledged that investing in the sector can help address potential energy shortages.
Ministers from the G7 nations, which include advanced democracies, convened in Sapporo, Japan, for a two-day conference focused on climate, energy, and environmental policies. Renewable energy sources and energy security have become pressing issues since Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
Japan, the host country, relies on imports for nearly all of its energy requirements and aims to keep liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transitional fuel for at least 10 to 15 years.
“We will significantly increase the electricity generated from renewable sources of energy,” the statement read, committing to collectively expanding offshore wind capacity to 150 gigawatts and solar capacity to over 1 terawatt by 2030.
The members also agreed to hasten “the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels” – the combustion of fossil fuels without capturing the resulting CO2 emissions – to attain a net-zero energy system by 2050 at the latest.
