The G7 leaders’ summit this weekend in Hiroshima will be one of multifaceted significance.
Amid the global energy crisis, Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and the last chance to act on climate change, the heads of government of the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Italy will meet at the venue where the world’s first atomic bomb was weaponized. It is undoubtedly a dramatic backdrop against which world leaders will deliberate on issues affecting the collective future of our people and our planet.
Both Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Joe Biden of the US have positioned themselves as leaders on issues pertaining to both climate and security – the latter being a key part of Kishida’s decision to host the Hiroshima talks. But both have taken backward steps in meeting their climate commitments.
Perhaps the greatest exercise of smoke and mirrors has been Japanese promotion of dangerous fossil gas as part of the global energy transition. The Japanese government has been promoting the upstream development of LNG for some time now. Take the Sakhalin-2 project, an oil and gas development project on Russia’s Sakhalin Island jointly owned by two Japanese companies 22.5 percent stakemaking Tokyo complicit in helping the Kremlin fund the war in Ukraine.
The country is also responsible for financing the disaster Matabari coal power plant in Bangladesh – one of the world’s most climate-affected countries. The factory costs eight to ten times as much as comparable projects. Japan is also pushing for a revamp of an LNG import facility on Bangladesh’s coast, which could lead to even more fossil fuel extraction.
Domestically, Kishida continues to voice support for non-renewable resources to convert Japan’s energy mix, including the promotion of co-firing of ammonia and hydrogen. But it is becoming increasingly clear that this is intended to justify the continued use of coal and gas plants beyond 2030 and extend the use of dangerous, old nuclear plants in Japan beyond 40 years – a threshold set after the Fukushima disaster. And if it’s gas in Bangladesh, Japanese funding is behind overseas coal projects in countries like the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.
What about the US?
While winning by passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $369 billion in funding to tackle climate change, Biden has approved two fossil fuel mega-initiatives in Alaska over the past two months — one of America’s largest oil drilling projects in recent decades. And plans to export LNG, including via an 800-mile pipeline. Ironically, Japan is expected to be one of the largest buyers of the gas from the LNG project.
Biden claims to be a climate president, but by continuing to approve fossil fuel megaprojects, he is violating his climate pledges and betraying already overstretched communities on the frontlines of climate change.
And it’s not just the US and Japan. The entire G7 has backed a so-called “just” energy transition deal with Indonesia, allowing the Southeast Asian nation to use fossil gas as a transition fuel. Fossil gas is the industry’s last-ditch effort to maintain its monopoly on energy security and block the necessary, justly sourced, properly implemented clean energy transition. LNG is a fossil fuel: when burned, it releases toxic greenhouse gases – mainly heat-trapping methane – into the atmosphere.
As with any other fossil fuel, fossil gas is located in certain geographic locations, meaning that the profits from its extraction are privatized among fossil fuel companies and governments in those areas, while the negative impacts of its extraction are socialized among communities around the world .
Prospects of meaningful commitments on climate at the G7 summit in the next three days were dampened by the outcome of the group’s April meeting of environment ministers in Sapporo, Japan. Contrary to the scientific consensus that coal plants must be phased out by 2030 to secure a livable world, the US, Japan and the European Union blocked an attempt to set a deadline for G7 members.
What seven of the world’s major advanced economies do and don’t do about the energy transition over the next three days will affect the entire planet. These countries are responsible for a disproportionate share of global emissions that have led to the current climate crisis. Together with international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, they could take important steps to end the fossil fuel era – for their own economies and by providing technical and financial support to developing countries through the transition.
Developing countries will look to the G7 communiqué for clues. If the world’s richest countries are unwilling to take bold steps towards a fossil-free global economy, why should countries that have not yet reached the same level of economic development bear the brunt of the disruption caused by a shift away from fossil fuels? fuels?
The choice for the G7 leaders is simple: Will they lock us into endless climate chaos, or will they do what they say to bring about a just, safe and livable future for all of us?
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.