State Secretary: G7 wants to phase out coal by 2035
Published: Monday, Apr 29th 2024, 19:40
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The climate, energy and environment ministers of the leading Western industrialized nations (G7) have agreed to phase out coal by 2035 at their meeting in Italy, according to a participant. "Yes, we have an agreement to phase out coal in the first half of the 2030s," British Energy Secretary Andrew Bowie told Class CNBC on the sidelines of the G7 ministerial meeting at the Venaria Reale Palace on the outskirts of Turin. "This is a historic agreement that we were unable to reach at COP 28 in Dubai last year," he added.
The G7 ministers want to issue a final declaration on Tuesday. Environment Minister Steffi Lemke and State Secretary for Economic Affairs Anja Hajduk have traveled to Turin from Germany. Italy holds the G7 presidency this year. "To have the G7 nations around the table together and send a signal to the world that the world's advanced economies are committed to phasing out coal in the early 2030s is truly incredible," said Bowie.
Germany had set the 2020 coal phase-out as 2038 by law. However, the coalition of the SPD, FDP and Greens had stipulated in the coalition agreement at the end of 2021 that it would "ideally" be brought forward to 2030. For the coal mining region in North Rhine-Westphalia, an exit date of 2030 has already been set. However, in the structurally weak east, where lignite is mined and converted into electricity in Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, there are strong reservations about a phase-out before 2038. According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, Germany, like the UK and France, is a member of the "Powering Past Coal Alliance" - a coal phase-out alliance - which is committed to an early global coal phase-out.
©Keystone/SDA
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