The leaders of the G7 – which brings together Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the United States and Canada – have agreed on the creation of a “climate club” in the fight to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate climate change.
The new body is aiming to strengthen and expand cooperation in the fight against global warming, according to a joint statement issued Tuesday after their summit in Germany.
This G7-led climate club will be an “intergovernmental forum of great ambition” open to all countries, explain the seven leaders. “We invite our partners, including major emitters, G20 members and other developing and emerging economies, to intensify discussions and consultations with us,” the statement continued.
This body, led by this year's chair Germany, aims, in particular, to bring together countries accepting common rules to avoid competitive disadvantages. These countries would jointly set ambitious targets and exempt each other from climate-related trade tariffs to which non-members would be subject.
This would include agreeing carbon pricing standards or uniform regulations for green hydrogen.
At this stage, neither Japan nor the United States intends to introduce a national carbon price, but conservationists hope that a new momentum will emerge from this initiative.
Members of this club, “will share their best practices” in the fight to reduce CO2 emissions “including through explicit carbon pricing, other carbon mitigation approaches and carbon intensities”, explains the statement.
“There are different views on measures such as carbon pricing,” Scholz admitted at a press conference, hoping the club “is not limited to the seven G7 countries but includes many other countries”.
