SAPPORO: The Group of Seven rich nations have agreed to speed up the development of renewable energy and called for reduced natural gas consumption as they aim to ramp up the phasing out of fossil fuels, the group said in a communique on Sunday.

While members recognised the need to reduce gas consumption, however, they also said investment in the sector can help address potential energy shortfalls, the communique showed.

Ministers from the G7 group of advanced democracies are gathering in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo for two days of meetings on climate, energy and environmental policy. The issues of renewable sources of fuel and energy security have taken on new urgency following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Host country Japan, which is dependent on imports for nearly all its energy needs, wants to keep liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transition fuel for at least 10 to 15 years.

“We will drastically increase electricity generated by renewable energies,” the members said in the communique, pledging to collectively increase offshore wind capacity by 150 gigawatts by 2030 and solar capacity to more than 1 terawatt.

The members also agreed to accelerate “the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels” - the burning of fossil fuels without using technology to capture the resulting C02 emissions – to achieve net zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest.