Climate Change, Energy, and Environment
Climate Change
Urgent and concrete action is needed to address climate change, as set out in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report. We affirm our strong determination to adopt at the Climate Change Conference in December in Paris this year (COP21) a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) applicable to all parties that is ambitious, robust, inclusive and reflects evolving national circumstances.
The agreement should enhance transparency and accountability including through binding rules at its core to track progress towards achieving targets, which should promote increased ambition over time. This should enable all countries to follow a low-carbon and resilient development pathway in line with the global goal to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C.
Mindful of this goal and considering the latest IPCC results, 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. Accordingly, as a common vision for a global goal of greenhouse gas emissions reductions we support sharing with all parties to the UNFCCC the upper end of the latest IPCC recommendation of 40 to 70 % reductions by 2050 compared to 2010 recognizing that this challenge can only be met by a global response. We commit to doing our part to achieve a low-carbon global economy in the long-term including developing and deploying innovative technologies striving for a transformation of the energy sectors by 2050 and invite all countries to join us in this endeavor. To this end we also commit to develop long term national low-carbon strategies.
The G7 welcomes the announcement or proposal of post-2020 emission targets by all its members, as well as the submission of intended nationally determined contributions (INDC) and calls upon all countries to do so well in advance of COP21. We reaffirm our strong commitment to the Copenhagen Accord to mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion a year by 2020 from a wide variety of sources, both public and private in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation.
Climate finance is already flowing at higher levels. We will continue our efforts to provide and mobilize increased finance, from public and private sources, and to demonstrate that we and others are well on our way to meet the USD 100 bn goal and that we stand ready to engage proactively in the negotiations of the finance provisions of the Paris outcome. We recognize the potential of multilateral development banks (MDBs) in delivering climate finance and helping countries transition to low carbon economies. We call on MDBs to use to the fullest extent possible their balance sheets and their capacity to mobilize other partners in support of country-led programs to meet this goal. We thank the presidency for the publication of the Background Report on Long-Term Climate Finance and call for a further exchange in all relevant fora in view of COP 21.
Mobilization of private sector capital is also crucial for achieving this commitment and unlocking the required investments in low-carbon technologies as well as in building resilience against the effects of climate change. To overcome existing investment barriers finance models with high mobilization effects are needed.
To this end, we will:
a) Intensify our support particularly for vulnerable countries' own efforts to manage climate change related disaster risk and to build resilience. We will aim to increase by up to 400 million the number of people in the most vulnerable developing countries who have access to direct or indirect insurance coverage against the negative impact of climate change related hazards by 2020 and support the development of early warning systems in the most vulnerable countries. To do so we will learn from and build on already existing risk insurance facilities such as the African Risk Capacity, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility and other efforts to develop insurance solutions and markets in vulnerable regions, including in small islands developing states, Africa, Asia and Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean as set out in the annex.
b) Accelerate access to renewable energy in Africa and developing countries in other regions with a view to reducing energy poverty and mobilizing substantial financial resources from private investors, development finance institutions and multilateral development banks by 2020 building on existing work and initiatives, including by the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance as set out in the annex.
We also reaffirm our ambition to make the Green Climate Fund fully operational in 2015 and a key institution of the future climate finance architecture.
We remain committed to the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and encourage all countries to follow and we remain committed to continued progress in the OECD discussions on how export credits can contribute to our common goal to address climate change.
We pledge to incorporate climate mitigation and resilience considerations into our development a**istance and investment decisions. We will continue our efforts to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and call on all Parties to the Montreal Protocol to negotiate an amendment this year to phase down HFCs and on donors to a**ist developing countries in its implementation.
In order to incentivize investments towards low-carbon growth opportunities we commit to the long-term objective of applying effective policies and actions throughout the global economy, including carbon market-based and regulatory instruments and call on other countries to join us. We are committed to establishing a platform for a strategic dialogue on these issues based on voluntary participation and in cooperation with relevant partners, including the World Bank.
Energy
We reaffirm our commitment to the energy security principles and specific actions decided in Brussels in 2014, welcome the progress achieved since then under the Rome G7 Energy Initiative and will continue their implementation. Moreover, we welcome the G7 Hamburg Initiative for Sustainable Energy Security, in particular the additional concrete joint actions to further strengthen sustainable energy security in the G7 countries and beyond.
Notably, we reaffirm our support for Ukraine and other vulnerable countries in their ongoing efforts to reform and liberalize their energy systems and reiterate that energy should not be used as a means of political coercion or as a threat to security. We welcome the intention of the Ukrainian government to reduce energy-related subsidies and invest in energy efficiency programmes.
In addition, we intend to continue our work on a**essments of energy system vulnerabilities. Moreover, we will work on strengthening the resilience and flexibility of gas markets, covering both pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas. We regard diversification as a core element of energy security and aim to further diversify the energy mix, energy fuels, sources and routes. We will strengthen cooperation in the field of energy efficiency and launch a new cooperative effort on enhancing cybersecurity of the energy sector. And we will work together and with other interested countries to raise the overall coordination and transparency of clean energy research, development and demonstration, highlighting the importance of renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies. We ask our Energy Ministers to take forward these initiatives and report back to us in 2016.
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Bonus section: Free Trade Agreements
While strengthening the multilateral trading system remains a priority, we also welcome ongoing efforts to conclude ambitious and high-standard new bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) and look forward to swift progress in plurilateral negotiations, including the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), the expansion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA). We will work to conclude the expansion of the ITA without delay. These agreements are able to support the multilateral system, contribute to stronger global trade and to more growth and jobs and can act as building blocks for future multilateral agreements. To this end, FTAs need to be transparent, high-standard, and comprehensive as well as consistent with and supportive of the WTO framework.
We welcome progress on major ongoing trade negotiations, including on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the EU-Japan FTA/Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), aimed at reaching ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial agreements. We will make every effort to finalize negotiations on the TPP as soon as possible as well as to reach agreement in principle on the EU-Japan FTA/EPA preferably by the end of the year. We will immediately accelerate work on all TTIP issues, ensuring progress in all the elements of the negotiations, with the goal of finalizing understandings on the outline of an agreement as soon as possible, preferably by the end of this year. We welcome the conclusion of the negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU and look forward to its timely entry into force. We will work to ensure that our bilateral and regional FTAs support the global economy.