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Page added on June 9, 2015
G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuels
Leaders of the world’s top economies Monday (8 June) gave a boost to global talks on tackling climate change by saying the global economy should be decarbonised by the end of this century.
The high-level backing by G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – increases the likelihood of almost 200 countries agreeing to a long-term goal when they meeting for climate talks in Paris in December.
The conclusions after the meeting in Bavaria, southern Germany, said the Paris agreement should have “binding rules at its core to track progress towards achieving targets”.
They also call for a “legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” that would apply to all countries.
“Binding is a very important term”, said German chancellor Angela Merkel after the two-day meeting ended.
The G7 also endorsed for the first time a global target of a 40 to 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, compared to 2010 levels.
According to press agency Canadian Press, which quoted sources that have seen a draft text, Canada and Japan have been trying to water down the text, attempting to keep any binding targets out of the conclusions.
Merkel said the conclusions were “the result of very hard work”, but refused to single out which delegations were dragging their feet.
Both Merkel and the French president were praised for the outcome.
“To get the US, Canada and Japan to agree to this is a remarkable achievement by Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, and a good sign for the negotiations,” said Michael Jacobs, advisor to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.
The G7 also noted that the earth’s average temperature must not be allowed to rise above 2 degrees Celsius, but this is a pledge that has been made before, including at international climate talks.
More importantly is the statement “that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century”.
It is the first time that G7 leaders speak of decarbonisation – reducing to zero the carbon emissions from fossil fuels – of the global economy.
That means that by the year 2100, there are roughly two outcomes for fossil fuels.
One is that energy production has shifted away from coal, oil, and gas – the three fossil fuels which according to the International Energy Agency, in 2012 accounted for about 81.7 percent of the world’s energy.
The other is that fossil fuels are still used, but their emissions are captured before they would have been released into the air.
However, the technique of carbon capture and storage, is still at an experimental stage.
Within minutes of the publication of the conclusions on the G7 website, climate groups and business organisations sent out positive reactions.
Greenpeace activist Kelly Mitchell called the result a “powerful call to move the economy away from fossil fuels and towards an renewable energy future”.
Others noted that investors will feel more confident about putting money towards renewable energy.
“This long-term decarbonisation goal will make evident to corporations and financial markets that the most lucrative investments will stem from low-carbon technologies” said Jennifer Morgan, head of the Global Climate Programme at the think tank World Resources Institute.
“From an investment point of view, this announcement from the G7 today only serves to further highlights that fossil fuels now and in the future are a poor risk”, said Tim Buckley, director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
40 Comments on "G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuels"
dohboi on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:04 am
Yeah, and I agreed to give up drinkin’… after a hundred years!!!
rockman on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:06 am
And once again current politicians attempt to dictate policies of future politicians many of which haven’t even born yet. Current politicians who will all be dead in a couple of decades born yet.
How fitting such a potential treaty is about 100 years since another global treaty based upon common sense necessity. Maybe this new one will fair better then the old one that didn’t even last 20 years:
Signed on June 28th 1919 as an end to the First World War, The Treaty of Versailles was supposed to ensure a lasting peace by punishing Germany and setting up a League of Nations to solve diplomatic problems. Instead it left a legacy of political and geographical difficulties which have often been blamed, sometime solely, for starting the Second World War.
Revi on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:27 am
Of course, we’ll “phase out” fossil fuels by 2100. There might not be any humans around then, so that will make it a little easier.
buddavis on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:32 am
I will believe it is a crisis when all of the people telling me it is a crisis start to act like it is a crisis.
Until then, I am going to keep driving my car, heating my home and relying on the 100% of daily products I use that require fossil fuels, to live and thrive.
Lore on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:36 am
This is like the kid who waits till the last moment before he gets his homework assignment done. The surprise will be that long before the deadline humanity will be desperate to do something. Of course by that time it’ll be like trying to bail out the Titanic with a tea cup.
Davy on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:36 am
This is a joke. There is no degrowth of our global system without collapse. We cannot reform it without disturbing another vital nodes that are too important to fail. We have so many important nodes that are interconnected from years of growth and the pursuit of efficiency. We cannot throw out the old and start a new without collapsing to a pre-industrial civilization. Energy and growth are inseparable in our industrial globalism. Our system must grow or its complexity suffers broad spectrum entropic decay.
This is more of the feel good trait of our primitive mind. We just can’t embrace problems with no solution. Instead we choose to have a collective denial of death. There is no future for industrial man yet we tell ourselves there is and dig a deeper holes with smiles on our faces.
The best thing the powers to be could do now is agree to immediate, and deep real limits on carbon. Then they need to tell themselves and the population this will create crisis destroying consequences and unintended consequences. We have to do it now because of AGW climate change and the systematic issues of the limits of growth and diminishing returns. Unmaintainable growth will eventually result in a sharp and dangerous drop in economic activity by its nature as a systematic structure.
The powers to be should have a joint press conference and talk about reality which currently is multiple predicaments and catch 22 situations at multiple levels. There is no optimism to talk about and no plans that will work that pursue the status quo. We are in an energy and efficiency trap. Complexity is killing us now
Saying you have a plan that will unfold over multiple years in the situation we are in globally is nothing more than a lie. Lies fool but lies about lies turn into a vicious cycle of self-deception whether individual or collective. In our case today lies are at all levels from political, to pop culture, to our religions. We are just fooling ourselves further into dangerous and painful traps that will get more and more deadly.
Davy on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:46 am
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-09/at-space-s-edge-swirls-of-blue-show-atmosphere-changing
GregT on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 8:17 am
Maybe they have a different plan to reduce our populations, because ultimately, that’s what this is really all about.
Lawfish1964 on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 8:17 am
What a bold proclamation! In 100 years, we agree to be completely free of the use of fossil fuels, which, by most estimates will be completely depleted in 53 years. This demonstrates perfectly why a top-down solution will never happen.
Rodster on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 9:02 am
The cynic in me say’s that they’ll probably burn more fossil fuels because by 2100 we’ll get of it for good.
In other words, party till it’s 2100.
JuanP on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 9:07 am
I just can’t stand these cretins anymore. They are so pathetic and full of shit that I find incomprehensible that people still listen or pay any attention to them.
The G7 is a club of washed out former empires in moral, social, political, and economic decline and facing collapse. The G7 leaders aren’t worth the air they breathe, they are one of the most useless bunch of human beings to ever gather together anywhere.
The rest of the world doesn’t give a crap about what these narcissistic morons think. The more they talk, the more obvious it becomes how full of shit they are.
The FIFA issue will cost the USA a lot, too. Fucking with the soccer World Cup is an extremely stupid thing to do. Most Americans can’t understand how important soccer is to most of the rest of the world. Everyone is siding with the Russians. I fear the USA is losing Latin America’s and most of the world’s good will over their fight with Russia, and this soccer battle is raging abroad and will have profound consequences, IMO.
Uruguayans are universally furious with the US government right now, I have never seen anything like it before. Uruguayans tend not to give a crap about the rest of the world, but to fuck with their soccer is really stupid on the USA’s part.
All of us will be dead in 100 years, so why should I give a crap about this. Why don’t these retards do something useful today, before I am dead?
KrellEnergySource on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 9:09 am
In the big picture, what measurable milestones will we meet in the next 25 years of this ‘plan’.
penury on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 9:09 am
It is always comforting to have these important people agree on a course of action. It sounds “cool” and the results would be “awesome”. And one of the best things, results are always promised for at least 20 years down the road. Don:t you feel better just knowing that these leaders are still capable of enough BS to appease the masses for at least the reminder of their term in office?
BobInget on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 10:21 am
I would be impressed if it were ten years instead of eighty five.
In the meantime, the earth changes under our
feet.
Two degrees C is already in the pipeline(s)
Davy on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 10:28 am
Juan, I agree with you on US messing with soccer and the common man’s opinion of that. Talk about some idiots in DC. That’s like trying to send Willey Nelson to prison for having a dime bag of pot.
Yet, don’t you think the popularity of soccer or any other games shows just how out of touch we apes are. We don’t need FIFI and a world cup. All this is HUGE, waste of resources. All the stupid American spectator sports are in the same boat. Frig all the stupidity and especially FIFI.
The kids playing at school and their neighborhood fine but anything above that makes me sick. The money and the hero worship of idiots that can play sports is an example of our evolutionary dead end as hairless apes with large brains that screw too much.
joe on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 10:43 am
I really hope carbon capture works, I don’t know how long it takes to smelt steel or other alloys in an electric smelting furnace powered by solar or wind energy. Or if in the future it will be a choice of either smelt steel or power the town because I know which one they will opt for.
I also hope that bankers are able to adapt to capital markets based on recycling and efficency as we use up rare earth’s and deplete copper rescources. How much growth can we deliver as we turn over a vast portion of our economies to not wasting anything and intentionally using as little as possible?
Still, I don’t know how they will decarbonise air travel, and without that things will move much more slowly.
Of course we cannot refine only jet fuel, we also have to take all the other liquids in the spread so as long as there is a need, there is going to be a supply.
That’s why it’s non sense to talk about decarbonising, and quitting oil and keeping society in a permanent, state of economic growth.
Plantagenet on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:30 am
Did Obama say in 2008 that he’d get around to stopping the seas from rising in 85 years?
Dredd on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:41 am
Oh yeah.
Like depraved-heart murder.
Gotta get rid of that stuff before Armageddon (now scheduled for 1/1/00) dudes.
This is Shill Team Six at work.
GregT on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:43 am
” The money and the hero worship of idiots that can play sports is an example of our evolutionary dead end as hairless apes with large brains that screw too much.”
That’s the circus Davy. 50 million Americans on food stamps is the bread.
Dredd on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:44 am
joe on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 10:43 am,
“I really hope carbon capture works,”
It does.
We were captured by carbon intense fossil fuel peddlers log ago.
And still do not know it.
roxy on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:46 am
Should be pretty easy to do considering there won’t hardly be any fossil fuels to de-carbon from. Silly to make these long-term committments when there is much uncertainity about the future.
GregT on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:55 am
It all boils down to the environment Joe.
We don’t need air travel, we don’t need steel, we don’t need electricity, we don’t need copper, we don’t need bankers, we don’t need capital markets, and we don’t need economic growth. All of those things in reality are compromising the only thing that we truly do need, a healthy natural environment.
We are unable to see the forests through our greed.
GregT on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 12:13 pm
“Did Obama say in 2008 that he’d get around to stopping the seas from rising in 85 years?”
No planter. He said, and I quote:
“The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal
He had faith in the “capacity of the American people” planter, and was very clear that he understood his own limitations.
apneaman on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 12:43 pm
Meaningless lawyer lingo tricks. All they have done is “agree” that there is a “need” to “decarbonize”.
Five G7 nations increased their coal use over a five-year period, research shows
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/g7-leaders-agree-phase-out-fossil-fuel-use-end-of-century
Newfie on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 12:48 pm
The headline in thenext news article is:
Conventional Crude Oil Production Reaches New High
Ha ha ha. ROTFLMAO.
The human race will de-carbonize when climate change fries our civilization to a crisp.
Plantagenet on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 1:07 pm
@grgr
Thanks for quoting Obama at length. I needed a good laugh this morning.
Again, O’s claim that his campaign in 2008 marked the moment that sea level would stop rising was a complete and total lie. Here we are 7 years later and now O’s saying he’ll get around to doing something about se level rise and climate change in, oh, about a century or so.
CHEERS!
Perk Earl on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 1:38 pm
Even though the number ONE pursuit of the global economy is GROWTH, and even though whenever there is a savings in energy use from more efficient usage we end up using MORE energy (Jevon’s Paradox), because it increases growth (profits-greed), we are somehow going to wean ourselves off FF to decarbonize and stay on this side of 2C warming, in spite of world population continuing to rise?
This can be summed up with a UFC ad in which the male heavhyweight title holder claims he’s prettier than the female middle weight title holder, and she says sarcastically, “On what planet?”
Nony on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 5:30 pm
Check out the propane glut.
https://rbnenergy.com/nowhere-to-run-nowhere-to-hide-u-s-propane-surplus-gaining-momentum
(I know of people who are flaring it, if they lack takeaway capacity. Butane still worth saving for the winter gasoline…)
GregT on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 6:05 pm
No planter,
Obama said that he had faith in the “capacity of the American people” IF THEY “were willing to work for it”. As an American planter, what did YOU do to work on sea level rise? Expecting one person to be responsible for 330 million people is a cop out. Obama does not control YOUR actions. Take responsibility for yourself.
Hubbert on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:36 pm
How about fossil fuel closing them out? There will not be a drop of oil left in 50 years. Even the world’s coal deposit wouldn’t last more than 70 years. These idiots are hopeless.
Makati1 on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 7:57 pm
“G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuels”
Hahahahahahahahahaha! KMAO
keith on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:30 pm
I think after 7 years of QE and no real growth, Governments are finally getting it. That we already peaked in the oil that built, maintained, and grew our civilization. Gov’s, Wall street, etc are now peak oil doomers. Reality of thermal dynamics and the return of Mother nature to the stirring wheel has left them no choices. The world economy will continue to spiral downward. How do they tell the 7 billion of us. Answer: decarbonization
I believe in climate change but the immediate threat is peak oil. Peak oil can never be discussed by anyone in authority, it will just make things worst. But when questions are asked there needs to be an answer to whats going on. It will be the decarbonization mantra. If they cared about this, it would have been done long ago. They have been forced to do this.
freak on Tue, 9th Jun 2015 11:44 pm
The reality is that the G7 will come to the conclusion to stop global warming when it is obvious to all that the planet is dying in which case they will panic. There cure will be EMP on the worlds populations which will end the industrial age and wipe out 80% world population in a year.
apneaman on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 12:42 am
Too late freak – can’t be stopped now. Too much inertia including dozens of feedback loops the melting poles being the big one.
Davy on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 6:35 am
Ape Man, I am with you. I read somewhere we would need to stop all manmade activity except agriculture to begin to lower carbon enough to make a difference. And like you say we are likely too late at the game. We are likely in or near abrupt climate change and one that is much worse than recent historic abrupt climate changes. This one is likely the big Kahuna. This one is likely an extinction event that will be the cake. The extinctions we are causing currently is just the icing.
I still think the die off will come for a crashing global economy leaving billions unsupported with modern food and products. Food production will plummet without industrial inputs. Modern man’s vital systematic physical structures and networks require modern products. We require steady resource inputs to that process.
It is clear we are near a collapse of modern global industrial man. Climate change will mean the possible rebirth or stability of a collapsed human society will face a daunting task of surviving a destabilized climate. We will likely not have enough climate stability for a return to preindustrial agriculture. It is likely we will have to go semi-nomadic hunter gathers with small scale nomadic agriculture.
The scenario above is a big if also. We are talking events ahead that have no precedents for man’s entire history. We know there was possibly a bottleneck 70,000 years ago from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory. This only caused a 1,000 year cooling event. We are talking likely 100,000 years to get the climate stabilized from AGW climate change if that. We just don’t know what we put in process by our carbon emissions but appears very ugly and a life killer.
Kenz300 on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 7:07 am
Climate Change is real….. we need to deal with the cause (fossil fuels) or we will deal with the impact.
The fossil fuel industry will do all they can to slow the transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources.
Wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from cellulose and waste are the future.
GregT on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 7:58 am
“There cure will be EMP on the worlds populations which will end the industrial age and wipe out 80% world population in a year.”
No need for an EMP freak. Climate change will take care of all that on it’s own. Maybe not in a year, but certainly within a decade.
apneaman on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 10:43 am
Hey Davy, the changes that are coming are truly unprecedented for homo sapien sapien. Toba is a great story, but apparently that is all it is. It’s easy to understand why the Toba story has taken on a life of it’s own – it’s the ultimate in man vs nature……with us triumphing again of course. Made for some really cool documentaries too.
At last, the death of the Toba bottleneck
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/archaeology/middle/petraglia_toba_india_continuity_2007.html
Did humans face extinction 70,000 years ago?
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/genetics/mtdna_migrations/sub-saharan-africa-population-size-behar-2008.html
Davy on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 1:45 pm
Ape Man, I am going to check that weblog out. On the tractor at the moment. This historic bottleneck fascinates me for another reason. Genetics says we are all related to one mother from that period 70,000. That may not be true but the idea is amazing.
Apneaman on Wed, 10th Jun 2015 2:16 pm
Davy, I’m fascinated with our past as well. Evolution provides many answers. John Hawks is a top paleo anthropologist and a great communicator for us lay persons. Here he is in a talk from 2013.
Are We the Last Neanderthals?
“Neanderthals fascinate us: so much like us, yet not quite us. We have long known that they overlapped with modern humans in prehistoric Europe, but recent genetic evidence suggests widespread interbreeding of the two groups. University of Wisconsin biological anthropologist John Hawks is at the forefront of this species-shaking research. He presents the latest findings from the lab and field and discusses what may or may not make us uniquely human.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uRCVyJ7-0c