Brussels, 05/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The energy ministers of the G20 group of countries (Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United States, United Kingdom and the EU) stated at their very first meeting in Istanbul on Friday 2 October the commitment of the G20 forum to energy access in disadvantaged regions and gave their backing to the development of renewable energy.
Only a few weeks before the UN climate conference (COP 21), this first G20 ministerial meeting on energy, to which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled, remains somewhat tight-lipped in its final communiqué on the issues of subsidies for fossil fuels and on the international climate agreement to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol.
The energy ministers of the world's major economies adopted an action plan for energy access, the first phase of which will focus on improving access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. The situation in this region had been the subject of a G20 conference the previous day. The challenge is huge since close to one person in three in the region has no access to electricity.
The G20 ministers also adopted a raft of voluntary options for the long term and an integrated, sustainable approach to accelerate deployment of renewable energy. This “toolkit”, developed under the aegis of international renewable energy agency, IRENA, includes areas for cooperation such as: - analysis of renewable technology costs, cost reduction potentials and good practice exchanges; - good practice exchanges on (i) enabling national policy framework design and (ii) power systems integration of higher shares of variable renewables; - development of a renewable energy specific risk mitigation facility; - assessment of country renewable energy technology potentials and development of roadmaps; - deployment of modern bioenergy.
At the same time, ministers underlined the importance of energy efficiency, both for reducing costs for businesses and households and for economic growth, strengthening energy security and improving the environment. They hailed progress made in implementing the action plan adopted by the G20 in November 2014, albeit on a voluntary basis (see EUROPE 11198). Under this plan, the G20 countries share knowledge on energy efficiency in a number of areas, including vehicles, buildings, networked appliances, industrial processes and electricity generation.
On subsidies to fossil energy, ministers hailed the progress made by a number of countries “to rationalize and phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption”, as called for by the G20 at its Brisbane summit in mid-November 2014. A report from the think tank Overseas Development Institute and the environmental NGO Oil Change International, published before the Brisbane summit, showed, however, that the countries of the G20 provided on average €70 billion annually for exploitation of fossil energies (see EUROPE 11196).
On tackling climate change, G20 energy ministers say only that they “recognize that 2015 is a critical year to take strong and effective action to tackle climate change”, through, for example, improved energy efficiency and greater investment in clean energy technologies. They state their support for the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) as the “primary intergovernmental body for negotiating climate change” and say they are working together to achieve a “positive and balanced” outcome at COP 21. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)