G7 leaders committed, with little detail, to collectively mobilise $100 billion per year in funding to fight climate change and limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, Kallanish reports.

The final communique from the UK-hosted summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, said on Sunday that the UK, US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy commit to achieving net zero by 2050 “at the latest.” The countries plan to collectively halve their emissions by 2030, while increasing climate finance.

“We reaffirm the collective developed country goal to jointly mobilise $100 billion per year from public and private sources, through to 2025 in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” the document states.

The G7 leaders claim they will increase and improve their overall international public climate finance contributions for this period, but also called on other countries to join and enhance their contributions to this effort. Further commitments are expected in the COP26, to be hosted in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

The agenda to “build back better” includes “leverage of innovation all whilst maintaining energy security.” The countries committed to decarbonise mobility and scale zero emission vehicle technology to cover buses, trains, shipping and aviation. They vowed to accelerate transition away from new ICE cars to promote the uptake of zero emission vehicles, but no individual targets and timeframes were given.

Other promises include to support the necessary infrastructure development such as charging and refuelling, plus enhance the offer of more sustainable transport modes such as public transport, shared mobility, cycling and walking. The countries will “take action” to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as steel and petrochemicals.

“We will focus on accelerating progress on electrification and batteries, hydrogen, carbon capture, usage and storage, zero emission aviation and shipping, and for those countries that opt to use it, nuclear power,” the group says. “Achieving our collective ambitions of a global green and resilient recovery offers the greatest economic opportunity of our time.”

The communique added that “with regard to China, and competition in the global economy, we will continue to consult on collective approaches to challenging non-market policies and practices which undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy.” These also include forced labour and human rights infractions.

The summit was highly criticised by environmental groups as it was expected to set a specific timeframe for the end of coal power generation, the most pollutant form of energy, still highly used in Japan and other Asian countries. Instead, the group agreed on “further accelerate the transition away from unabated coal capacity.”

Activist Greta Thunberg said on Sunday the G7 leaders presented “empty climate commitments” and repeated “old unfulfilled promises.”

Greenpeace UK said this was “another missed opportunity,” with the group failing to set up for a successful COP26. “Boris Johnson has reheated old promises and peppered his plan with hypocrisy, rather than taking real action to tackle the climate and nature emergency,” it said on Monday.