The seven industrial nations that form the so-called G7 agreed Monday to phase out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century, in an effort they believe would help reduced greenhouse gases.
The leaders of the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the UK, Japan, and Italy, who are meeting in the German region of Bavaria this week, said they have committed themselves to the need to “decarbonize the global economy in the course of this century.”
In practical terms, that means the leaders have committed to cut emissions generated mainly by the coal, oil and gas industries by 40% to 70% by 2050 from 2010 levels.
German chancellor and the summit’s host, Angela Merkel, said the group also reaffirmed a pledge to raise $100 billion a year from public and private sources by 2020 to help poorer nations tackle climate change.
Canada, Japan blocked taks
According to Canadian Press, Japan and Canada blocked attempts at a stronger statement on binding greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Despite the challenges, today’s decision represents a victory for Merkel and France’s President François Hollande, who had been pushing for an agreement on decarbonising the global economy ahead of the meeting.
It remains unclear, however, how exactly the seven nations’ leaders will meet the emissions reduction goals they have backed.
10 Comments
Fritztdk
In case you haven’t noticed, this is an old G-8 picture. Abe, Putin, Barosco, etc are no longer in power!!!
Paul Renken
Your headline is wrong. They did not say they were phasing out fossil fuels. They said phasing out fossil fuel emissions. Here is the actual wording “… we emphasize that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are
required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of
this century.” Fuel cells and carbon capture and storage for coal fired power stations are examples of continuing to use fossil fuels withuot contributing to emissions. Stop misquoting the facts and read the bloody press release carefully!
bob ashworth
Greenhouse gases as all gases and dust in the atmosphere cool our planet. No scientists anymore it seems. We get our energy from the sun. The same atmosphere blocks more radiant energy from the sun than what is reflected back to earth from the atmosphere. Mans contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is only around 3%, nature provides the rest – The IPCC has hidden this table. It was in the 2001 report but since was eliminated from that report. The world is full of charlatans and liars.
dcurry
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windship
Only fifty years too late! We are on track for a 6 degree celcius rise in global temperature by then, no more Arctic ice, methane eruptions that dwarf human emissions, at least 2 metre sea level rise and over a billion refugees. Future world leaders will not be dancing and smiling like this in the street.
Kenneth Viney
If you are going to make predictions out 85 years then try and keep current. We agree he planet is getting warmer very slowly but man has very little to do with it. We have 1000 vulcanos spewing out CO2 this year and we also have the highest CO2 concentrations. Arctic ice is thicker this year than last and we have been slightly cooling off since 2008 as the Antarctic ice is getting thicker as well these past 7 years. Al Gore told us the Arctic ice would be gone by 2013 and yet the Canadian Govt may not open the Northwest Passage with the ice breakers this year. S. Africa is running out of coal to power up the country so millions will go without power until perhaps the Russian deal to build 4 big Nukes goes ahead. No power, No pumps. No water in the township spigots. You radical tree huggers could care less.
Huey51
What a joke this shows mans own vanity in thinking MAN can control nature. We have had climate change for millions of years and now man is responsible for everything form tornadoes to snow storms tor draughts to rain fall. And all brought to you by CO2 plant food. Man is only responsible for 3 to 4 % of the CO2 released into the atmosphere on a yearly basis mother nature releases the other 96% but the 4 % is responsible for all the problems what a crock.
If the facts don’t fit the science or the theory or evidence the best thing to do is ???Change the evidence change Data that has been used and for the last 100 years so it is now good for your theory. And the biggest joke of all is all the people who accept this new data and evidence as fact when if it was the other way around it would be called a conspiracy or tampering. All you have to look at is who will gain the most from all of this and I can tell you right now it will not be the ordinary citizens. In the coming years our goverments will be asking us to give up our freedoms and impoverish ourselves on behalf of this faulty science. T
Honheree
Great G8 photo..not G7 as Putin is included and old deposed heads of states. Who is editing this article?
France would of course push this, as they do when it is to their benefit, with 75% of their electricity from nuclear power. Germany has 17% from nuclear, but still relies on coal. I am sure once the cold sets in over the next 15 years or more and the CO2 scam is totally debunked by the COLD fact, this agreement will be dropped. But not before billions of dollars are wasted on this King Canute of a folly, when it could be more readily spent on cleaning up REAL pollution from human body waste, chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, plastics, garbage in rivers, lakes and oceans. and on land These are more obviously devastating than the food of plants….. CO2.! Angela Merkel’s $100 billion a year would go a long way to reducing this and go no where trying to reduce CO2……to WHAT level?
Robert Erokwu
In a nutshell they want to eradicate Fossil fuel for non-polluting fuels as this will entail serious investment into new energy technologies to attract investors while promoting agricultural fuels, solar, wind etc.
I think this move will help in the reduction of green-house gases and not on its total eradication.
brettles02
I’ll put some more wood in my heater as these winters around here are getting colder