Leaders sign up to fund ‘green industrial revolution’

G7 leaders have pledged to ­finance a ‘green industrial revolution’ across the world with a fund to support the decarbonisation of developing countries.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden during a working session at the G7 summit in Carbis Bay. Picture: AFP

G7 leaders have pledged to ­finance a “green industrial revolution” across the world with a fund to support the decarbonisation of developing countries.

Billed as the West’s riposte to the Chinese Belt and Road ­Initiative that has funded billions of dollars of infrastructure projects in Africa, the leaders agreed on Sunday to set up a rival scheme to leverage public and private finance to tackle climate change.

They also agreed to raise their contributions to meet an overdue spending pledge of $US100 billion a year by rich countries to cut carbon emissions and cope with global warming in the developing world. But only Canada and ­Germany offered firm promises of more cash.

There was also a pledge to phase out the use of coal by G7 member nations, but no firm date was put on when the commitment would be achieved.

Green groups criticised the failure of the summit’s leaders to make more progress or agree on commitments.

“We had hoped that the leaders of the world’s richest nations would come away from this week having put their money where their mouth is,” Catherine Pettengell, of Climate Action Network, said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “not going to pretend that our work is done” but said the leaders accepted that the G7 needed to support the rest of the world to decarbonise.

“Action has to start with us,” he said.

US President Joe Biden said the so-called Build Back Better World initiative would unlock funding from the private sector to support developing countries.

“Transitioning the world to cleaner energy sources is ­urgent,” he said.

“It is essential if we are going to beat the climate (crisis). It is the existential problem facing humanity.”

In the final communique the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to limit global warming to 1.5C and to achieve net zero no later than 2050. Members also agreed to halve collective emissions from 2010 levels by 2030.

The G7 pledged more than a decade ago to provide $US100 billion a year by 2020 to poorer nations to develop cleanly and cope with the impacts of climate change, but are about $US20 billion short.

Greenpeace UK chief John Sauven said: “The dismal track record of rich nations to honour commitments made over a decade ago on international climate finance makes it hard to take the (Build Back Better) plan with anything more than a pinch of salt.”

David Attenborough told the leaders earlier: “The scientific collaboration on Covid treatment and vaccines showed just how much we can achieve ­together … Tackling climate change is now as much a political and communications challenge as it is a scientific or techno­logical one.

“We have the skills to address it in time. All we need is the ­global will to do so.”

The Times