G7 chair says just transition is a policy priority

The chair’s summary from the 2022 G7 summit includes a focus on not only accelerating the energy transition but also ensuring that the transition is just and addresses energy security concerns. The summary reads, “leaders agreed that phasing down unabated coal and scaling up clean and renewable energies needs to be environmentally and socially just, acknowledging contributions by approaches such as circular economy”. A focus on a just transition would imply that policymakers would need to take into account the expected distributive effects of the transition on multiple stakeholders including labour markets in fossil fuel industries. The chair’s summary also highlighted the use of Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) to achieve just transitions, citing the successful example of the JETP with South Africa.