Officials from the Group of Seven wealthy nations have announced they will aim to largely end greenhouse gas emissions from their power sectors by 2035.
The move makes it highly unlikely that those countries will burn coal for electricity beyond that date. Ministers from the G-7 countries meeting in Berlin on Friday also announced a target to have a “highly decarbonized road sector by 2030.”
That means electric vehicles would dominate the new car sales by the end of the decade. The G-7 also recognized for the first time the need to provide developing countries with additional financial aid to cope with the loss and damage caused by global warming.
The agreements were largely welcomed by climate advocates.
Alok Sharma, who led last year's U.N. Climate Change Conference, said it's time for G-7 nations to lead the fight on climate change.
"While governments need to deal with their immediate and acute energy needs, we can, and we must, do this without locking in medium and long-term emissions," he said.
He added that in order for the world to not break a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius, nations need to go above and beyond what was set out in the Paris Accord.
"We are equally united in the view that climate and environment security are absolutely synonymous with energy and national security and I cannot overstate that," he said. "Solving the global energy crisis and the chronic climate crisis requires the same solution, it’s about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, as part of a managed transition."
