G7 holds 'strategic' meeting on environment and climate in Italy

The meeting comes as experts urge industrialized countries to use their political influence, wealth and technology to end the use of fossil fuels.

The G7 ministers' meeting in Turin is the first major political gathering since the world pledged to start reducing global fossil fuel consumption at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year. It also comes amid a new report from a global climate institute that shows the G7 is falling short of its targets.

Italy, which holds the rotating G7 presidency, has said it wants the Turin meeting to be a "strategic link" between COP28 in Dubai last year and COP29, which is scheduled to take place in Azerbaijan in November. Italian Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said the meeting's goal was to ensure that the roadmap set out by COP28 was "practical, realistic and concrete". He stressed that Italy, a climate change hotspot vulnerable to wildfires, droughts and melting ice, was putting "biodiversity, ecosystems, warming seas" at the top of the agenda.

The G7 environment ministers, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US, are scheduled to hold four working sessions over two days at the Palazzo Venaria. Discussions will highlight the need to diversify sources of critical raw materials, key to renewable energy systems, as well as the reuse of minerals. Italy said rare earths and renewable energy would be part of the discussions with African delegations invited to the Turin meeting.

Environmentalists hope the G7 will step up support for less developed countries to decarbonize industrial production, with advice from experts in particularly hard-hit sectors such as cement and steel. Some commitments are expected to be made to raise more funding for climate change adaptation.

Italy said the G7 would discuss “innovative” financing models amid growing calls to ensure more accessible finance for vulnerable countries.

According to the Climate Policy Institute, the G7 countries account for about 38% of the global economy and were responsible for 21% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021. A report released by the institute last week found that none of the G7 members were on track to meet their current targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, instead seeking to cut "at best about half of what is needed."