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G7 must lead way on energy shift: NGO
International aid agency Oxfam says that the Group of 7 (G7) countries must lead the way in a shift from coal to renewable energy, as they are most responsible for climate change
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nternational aid agency Oxfam says that the Group of 7 (G7) countries must lead the way in a shift from coal to renewable energy, as they are most responsible for climate change.
According to Oxfam, the G7 also have the most resources to decarbonize their economies and fund both emissions cuts and adaptation, so that developing countries can protect themselves from climate change and develop in a low-carbon direction.
In a new report entitled 'Let Them Eat Coal', Oxfam says coal is the biggest contributor to climate change, which is already hitting the world's poorest and complicating the fight to end hunger. The G7 countries remain major consumers of coal, the report says.
The 'Let Them Eat Coal' report has been endorsed by a number of climate, business and development specialists, including the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Professor Olivier de Schutter; Nick Molho, chief executive of the Aldersgate Group of business, political and civil society leaders; International Trade Union Confederation general secretary Sharan Burrow; and Dessima Williams, former ambassador of Grenada to the UN and former Chair of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States.
'Climate disruptions are already affecting many poor communities in the global South, and coal-fired power stations are contributing, every day, to make this worse,' de Schutter said in a statement on Saturday.
'They increasingly look like weapons of destruction aimed at those who suffer the impacts of changing rainfall patterns as well as of extreme weather events,' he said.
G7 leaders are meeting in Germany starting Sunday, and discussion of a shift toward renewable energy is on the agenda.
Oxfam said it was calling on the G7 to stand by existing commitments to jointly mobilize climate funding of US$100 billion a year by 2020. The agency said it wanted to see progress from the G7 in both raising public finance over the next five years and increasing the proportion of funding for adaptation.
At the summit, G7 leaders will discuss the potential decarbonization of their economies.
'This is an opportunity for leaders to set the tone towards the crucial UN climate talks in Paris at the end of the year,' Oxfam said. (ebf)(++++)
