G7 leaders have agreed to raise their climate finance contributions for developing countries in order to match a decade-long commitment to provide $100bn (£70bn) by 2020.
With some major world leaders gathering in Cornwall over the weekend, climate change was high on the agenda, including commitments to support a “green revolution” designed to create jobs and cut emissions in order to meet Paris Agreement climate pledges.
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In 2010, developed countries pledged to ramp up climate spending to $100bn annually by 2020, but they fell short of this goal by about $20bn. While it was agreed on principle to make up this shortfall at the meeting, only two G7 countries – Canada and Germany – provided a firm commitment. Canada said it would double its climate finance pledge to C$5.3 billion (£3.1bn) over the next five years and Germany would increase its by €2bn to €6bn euros (£5.2bn) a year by 2025 at the latest.
The seven nations which form the G7 group – the US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – reaffirmed their commitment to “jointly mobilise $100 billion per year from public and private sources, through to 2025”.
“Towards this end, we commit to each increase and improve our overall international public climate finance contributions for this period and call on other developed countries to join and enhance their contributions to this effort.”
Speaking to reporters at the end of the summit, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said: “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. It’s a lot of money still to raise but don’t forget the UK has put in £11.6bn, we’ve had a big pledge from Canada, we’ve had big pledges around the table. I do think we can get there and I think it’s vital that we do.”
Source: E&T