The Group of Seven climate change, energy, and environment ministers wrapped up their two-day meeting in Sapporo on Sunday with an agreement to drastically expand offshore wind power by 2030 and accelerate the phase-out of unabated fossil fuel use.
But the meeting failed to come to an agreement on a timeline to exit coal, which several European delegates, energy experts, and nonprofit organizations in Japan and abroad had been calling for as a way to meet midcentury net zero carbon emissions goals, but to which the Japanese government is opposed.
Without a clear timeline to completely eliminate coal use, those favoring a deadline argue that it will be impossible to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels by midcentury.