G7 pledge: fossil fuel subsidies to end by 2025

G7 leaders plant trees at Ise
Jingu shrine in Kashikojima, Japan.

The G7 nations have for the first time set a deadline for the ending most fossil fuel subsidies, saying government support for coal, oil and gas should end by 2025.

The leaders of the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union encouraged all countries to join them in eliminating “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” within a decade.

“Given the fact that energy production and use account for around two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, we recognise the crucial role that the energy sector has to play in combatting climate change,” said the leaders’ declaration, issued at the end their summit in Japan. The pledge first entered into G7 (then known as G8) declarations in 2009 but has until now lacked a firm timeline.

Shelagh Whitley, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, called it an “historic day” but said 2020 was a more appropriate date if governments were serious about their commitments to the global climate deal agreed in Paris in December.

Read The Guardian story - “G7 nations pledge to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.”

The obvious is not always so obvious to many people

An obvious fact is that to mitigate climate change and avoid a catastrophic outcome, we need to change how we think.

Along with a structural change to our thinking and equal changes to our behaviour, how we live and what resources we draw upon.

This morning, Chris Uhlmann presented AM on Radio National’s RN Breakfast and during that, interviewed Shelagh Whitley of the Overseas Development Institute, who lamented the massive government support given to fossil fuel industries.

She pointed to the grants and tax breaks, amounting to billions of dollars just in Australia for production and exploration.

Ms Whitley pointed that if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change, then two thirds of the fossil fuels we already know exist must stay in the ground.

The implication of what she was saying is that further exploration is pointless and to subsidise it, or provide generous tax breaks with public money is foolhardy and so risks humanity’s future.

An extensive report compiled by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) through Oil Change International looks at depth at the complexities.