How The G7 Act Will Shape Our Lives - For Better Or Worse

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and growing instability in the global economy, world leaders gathering for the next G7 summit have their hands full with urgent responsibilities.

- Ban Ki-Moon

Rising to these challenges requires following through on promises to achieve peace, protect public health, and ease poverty. But it also means addressing a threat that both dwarfs and implicates all the others: climate change.

The climate crisis is fast approaching a stage of catastrophic harm that endangers the well-being and livelihoods of billions of people and the window for preventing the worst possible outcomes shrinks by the day. In fact, we have until the end of this decade to transform the global economy, ending our reliance on fossil fuels and embracing circular forms of production, to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

Climate action on this scale has never before been attempted. But the current moment presents us with a clear opportunity to take advantage of major technological gains that have been made in recent years, along with the broad public consensus. Indigenous leaders and environmental activists have outlined the necessary course of action for decades. Now, the G7 summit can become the place where heads of state finally listen to this guidance and kickstart a just transition away from fossil fuels.