The Group of Seven's move to promote deliveries of liquefied natural gas as a temporary response to the energy crisis prompted warnings from environmental groups over the continued embrace of fossil fuels, with one expert pinning blame on the hosts.

At their summit in Hiroshima, G7 leaders also stressed the importance of making a green transformation and pledged to ramp up clean energy investments. Specifically, they mentioned a collective increase in offshore wind capacity of 150 gigawatts by 2030 to meet a joint commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60% and fully or predominantly decarbonize the power sector by 2035.

But it was the G7's approval of new gas investments to survive the ongoing energy shortages stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war that caught the attention of environmental organizations.

While Germany, which has been hit particularly hard by the cut off of Russian gas supplies, has been boosting investment to diversify its LNG sources, NGOs said it contradicted what experts said was needed to achieve decarbonization goals.

“If Germany continues to focus its negotiation power on new gas investments rather than leading the way for a future free of fossil fuels, this won’t be possible. Worse, the G7 is ignoring the International Energy Agency’s call to refrain from any new investments into fossil fuels, not just coal, to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees,” said Friederike Roder, vice president for Global Advocacy, Global Citizen.

Others noted that the decision on LNG means more delays on transitioning out of fossil fuel.

“By further investing in fossil fuels, the G7 leaders are missing out on the rapidly accelerating competitive edge of clean energy, and the wide range of associated benefits for people, businesses and economies,” said Gillian Nelson, policy director of the We Mean Business Coalition.

The G7 also backed Japan's efforts to promote the abatement of carbon emissions from fossil fuel plants through introducing controversial new carbon capture utilization and storage technologies.

However, only conditional support was given to Japan’s push for ammonia co-fired coal plants and hydrogen energy in the power sector.

Such technologies should be developed only if they can be aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement's goal of keeping the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, the joint communique said.

The G7’s reaffirmation of its commitment to jointly mobilize $100 billion annually until 2025 to help mitigate climate change and supporting climate-vulnerable groups was praised, although concern was raised about how the G7 countries would achieve this.

“While it is encouraging to see a commitment to finally meet the $100 billion international climate finance promise in 2023, no new pledges have been made to give this promise some credibility,” Roder said.

Kimiko Hirata, executive director of Climate Integrate, put the blame for the G7’s continued push for fossil fuel investments on Japan, and what she said was a lack of a sense of urgency about the climate crisis on the part of the Japanese government.

“Japan didn’t prioritize the climate agenda throughout the negotiations, but rather blocked key issues that needed to be progressed, such as setting a timeline for a coal phase out. Japan also pushed new fossil-based technologies for the thermal power sector (such as carbon capture utilization and storage technologies), driven by its domestic interests,“ she said.