Historic agreement – Shutting down coal plants

Energy ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) rich countries have agreed to shut down their countries’ coal-fired power plants by 2035 at the latest, in a significant step towards transitioning away from fossil fuels. of energy, reports Reuters.

“We have an agreement to end the use of coal in the first half of 2030… it is a historic agreement,” said the British Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, Andrew Bowie, news.ro reports.

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Italian diplomatic sources said the meeting concluded a technical agreement.

The agreement will be included in the final communique of the G7 energy ministers, which will be published on Tuesday at the end of a two-day meeting in Turin.

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A source told Reuters earlier that diplomats from the G7 countries – Italy, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan – discussed the issue until late Sunday before the start of the ministerial meeting.

The deal marks a significant step in the direction indicated last year by the United Nations COP28 climate summit for a transition away from fossil fuels, of which coal is the most polluting.

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“It helps accelerate the shift of investment from coal to clean technology, especially in Japan and more broadly in the entire Asian coal economy, including China and India,” said Luca Bergamaschi, a co-founding member of the Italian research institute ECCO, on X.

Italy produced 4.7% of its total electricity last year through its six remaining coal-fired stations. Rome currently plans to shut down its coal plants by 2025, except for the island of Sardinia, where the deadline is 2028.

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In Germany and Japan, coal has a greater role, with the share of electricity produced by the fuel being in 2023 greater than 25% of the total.

Last year, under Japan’s presidency, the G7 pledged to prioritize concrete steps toward phasing out coal-fired power generation, without specifying a specific deadline.