An agreement to phase out fossil carbon in power generation was reached on Thursday by the G7 countries,[/B] rejecting the more ambitious proposal presented by Germany.[/B]
Still, the G7 energy ministers, who have been meeting since Thursday in Berlin, called on OPEC to increase oil production. The aim is to reduce the pressure on prices, which have reached their highest point in a decade due to the war.
"We call on oil and gas producing countries to act in a responsible manner and respond to the tightening of international markets, pointing to the key role that OPEC can play," the statement issued by the ministers said, among other things.
High on the agenda of the Energy and Environment ministers' meeting was the "urgent" issue of reducing the EU's dependence on Russian gas, on which the G7 stressed the important role to be played by increased LNG flows from other countries.
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Pressure on OPEC
Earlier this month, leaders of the group met and pledged that G7 members would move to gradually reduce their dependence on Russian energy flows, which includes an embargo on Russian crude.
The EU in particular has been in talks for days trying to reach an agreement on an embargo on Russian oil, although Hungary's refusal to agree has blocked the process.
Of course, while the G7's call has its merits, it is far from certain that it will be heeded by the producing countries. Even the unofficial head of OPEC, Saudi Arabia, which maintains close ties with the West, especially the US, has resisted pressure to open the spigots more, with the official argument that there are no shortages in the markets and that the scope for boosting production is limited by many oil-producing states due to insufficient investment in modernising their infrastructure in previous years.
Moreover, the enlarged OPEC+ cartel also includes Russia, which would in no way want to facilitate the West in this way. OPEC+ has remained firm in its policy of gradual modest increases of 400,000 barrels per day, an increase that has certainly failed to halt the rally in prices that have almost doubled since last year.
In remarks the other day, Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman claimed that Riyadh would stand by Russia as a member state of the cartel, in a statement that caused discomfort in Western capitals. He had argued that the world community should show greater appreciation for the value of the alliance of oil-producing states.
Green targets
However, green issues were certainly on the agenda of the two-day meeting of G7 ministers, with a focus on trying not to use the war in Ukraine as an excuse to derail countries from the environmental targets they have set.
In this context, the Group committed itself for the first time to achieving the target of decarbonising the electricity sector by 2035 and gradually reducing the use of thermal energy, although it failed to agree on an explicit commitment to end the use of coal by 2030, as was the proposal put forward by host Germany. Agreement on this issue was reportedly not reached due to opposition from the US and Japan.
In any case, the agreement on decarbonisation in the electricity sector is considered important, as the reservations of Italy, Japan and Canada were overcome. In addition, the US and Germany have already set national targets for a zero carbon footprint from electricity by 2035 and the UK even earlier.
Source.gr/With information from Financial Times
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