Ukraine, climate, hunger: the G7 action plans

The world’s top industrialised nations wrapped up a three-day summit dominated by talks on how they can bolster Ukraine in repelling Russia’s invasion while minimising the international fallout.

Here are the main plans drawn up by the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States in tackling the myriad of crises facing the globe: 

War in Ukraine

Allies vowed to provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for “as long as it takes”. 

Financial aid for Kyiv reaches $29.5 billion, as the United States separately said it was planning to send Ukraine sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to defend against Russian attacks.

To put the squeeze on Russia, they plan to work towards a price cap for Russian oil and impose an import ban from gold from Vladimir Putin’s country.

They said they will “consider a range of approaches, including options for a possible prohibition of all services which enable transportation of Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum products” unless the oil is purchased at or below a certain price.

China

G7 leaders called out China’s “non-transparent and market-distorting” international trade practices. 

They signalled that they would seek to extricate themselves from reliance on China, saying that they will “foster diversification and resilience to economic coercion, and to reduce strategic dependencies”.

The leaders also voiced concern about human rights violations in China, urging Beijing to respect fundamental freedoms. 

They stressed that the situation in Tibet, and in Xinjiang, where there is “forced labour”, “is of major concern”.

The statement also urged China to “honour its commitments” under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which Beijing agreed Hong Kong could keep some freedoms and autonomy for 50 years under a “One Country, Two Systems” model.

The G7 also unveiled a plan to raise some $600 billion in public and private investments for infrastructure programmes in poor countries, in a bid to compete with China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative.

Global hunger

The G7 pledged an additional $4.5 billion to ease the global food shortage crisis. That brings the total joint commitment to $14 billion for the year. 

They also called on countries and companies with significant food stockpiles to help ease a hunger crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a statement, they also urged “all countries to avoid excessive stockpiling of food which can lead to further price increases”.

Climate

The G7 underlined the “increased urgency to act” to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by around 43 percent by 2030 relative to the 2019 level.

It committed to a “highly decarbonised road sector by 2030”.

The group agreed to set up a “Climate Club” of willing countries to coordinate and speed up efforts to tackle global warming. 

Energy

The G7 committed to ending new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022.

The term “unabated” refers to projects that do not employ techniques to offset some of the pollution caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

With the scramble for alternative energy sources as Western allies shun Russian fossil fuels, however, the G7 agreed that public investment can be made in the gas sector “as a temporary response”.