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G7 Leaders Summit fails to deliver on Climate
ITALY
The G7 Leaders in their communique reiterated previous commitments on the energy transition decisions of COP28, but revealed no further progress to deliver climate finance. The G7 leaders committed to be “leading contributors'', but without concrete pledges to back up this claim.
“It’s extremely disappointing that G7 leaders have failed to advance the kind of climate agenda we need by providing additional climate finance and an ambitious new finance goal ahead of the upcoming COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan in November. They have once again demonstrated they don't care enough to go beyond lip service on climate finance. Only speaking of being 'leading contributors' is not enough. The G7 leaders had the responsibility to put something meaningful on the table but failed. It is imperative that leaders in the Global North take responsibility for the climate crisis through granting significant finance to the Global South for renewables development, adaptation, and loss and damage. Unlocking finance is essential, time is ticking, and the world is watching.
Andreas Sieber, 350.org Associate Director of Global Policy and Campaigns
Leaders reaffirmed a commitment to the COP28 renewable energy target, and a new clean energy initiative with African states. However current government climate goals reveal a 3000 gigawatt renewable ambition gap by 2030, which is insufficient to replace fossil fuels at the scale and speed necessary to keep staying at 1.5 degrees within reach .
“The G7s 2035 coal phase out commitment is an insufficient step in the right direction. It is inadequate when it comes to meeting the historic responsibility of the wealthiest nations and biggest historical emitters and falls short of what science commands." Andreas Sieber
2024 has been dubbed the ‘year of climate finance’ to build on progress made in Dubai at Cop28. Campaign organizations such as 350.org are hoping that world leaders' summits such as G7 as leaders of the wealthiest nations and biggest historic emitters would lead the way by putting climate finance firmly on the table.
Additional Quotes
Germany: Kate Blagojevic, 350.org
“This very difficult week for the German Chancellor ends in the supposed ‘engines’ of the world stalling on delivering meaningful climate action at this meeting. Scholz failed to make the kind of commitments in renewable energy or energy efficiency that are needed to limit global heating and bring down energy bills in Germany. Importantly, the leaders failed to put the kind of money on the table that could both provide finance to repair climate damage and deliver affordable, renewable energy to people in the Global South. Finance could be found if the leaders agree to a global wealth tax on the ultra-wealthy. This is the kind of dynamic climate leadership needed to deliver hope and change rather than more hot air from global meetings.”
France : Fanny Petitbon, 350.org France
“G7 leaders proved once more how disconnected they are from the reality of the climate emergency. President Macron, who last year hosted in Paris the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact to create a “public finance shock” for development and climate action, and a few months later made severe cuts to Overseas Development Assistance, yet again didn’t live up to his promises. At Apulia, he failed to pledge any new and additional money to support the most vulnerable countries in boosting their energy transition, through real solutions and not dangerous distractions, and in facing climate impacts. This is a huge missed opportunity given the uncertainty around the French political landscape in three weeks from now, and its potential devastating consequences on climate ambition domestically and globally.”
UK: Tommy Vickerstaff, 350.org
“Sunak’s position on climate has been consistently, dangerously weak. As the G7 countries collectively flounder, the UK’s failure to act and spend at the scale needed to tackle the climate crisis is clearer than ever. The UK needs to give a firm, honest commitment to finance a rapid transition to renewables domestically and globally. Instead of the general public, it is the ultra rich - billionaires and fossil fuel companies - who should be footing that bill, and whoever leads the next government has to make that happen.”
Japan: Masayoshi Iyoda, 350.org
“One year after Japan showed a total lack of climate leadership at the G7 Hiroshima summit, PM Kishida failed to repair his reputation this year again. In the summit, Kishida mentioned the seriousness of climate disasters in Africa and the needs of climate finance. At the same time Kishida promised to support a fossil gas project in Mozambique. Japan’s international public finance is notorious for still supporting fossil projects overseas and for its predatory lending practices, such as burden of loans and conditions to contract with Japanese industries. It's time for Japan to redirect its full financial support to fair, safe, and affordable renewable energy and energy conservation.
Domestically, Kishida must change the fossil-addicted and nuclear-dependent policies in the reviewing process of the Basic Energy Plan to achieve the coal phaseout commitment.”
US : Candice Fortin, 350.org
"Yet another meeting ends without real commitments to revert the situation rich countries like the US put us in. As COP29 approaches and the world deals with worsening climate impacts, we can't afford to waste more time. If the US wants to pride itself on being a "world leader", it needs to show how it will pay its climate debt to climate vulnerable countries that bear the most significant climate impacts without the necessary funds for adaptation. When we talk about financing renewable energy, we are talking about more than just arbitrary numbers in the billions and trillions. We’re talking about the bridge that will take us from a world facing climate chaos coupled with extreme inequality, to one in which communities around the world have access to renewable, affordable energy."
Canada : Atiya Jaffar, 350.org
“It’s frustrating to see this crucial G7 meeting end with no new commitments to help poorer countries make the shift to renewable energy. Canada is the only G7 member whose emissions have risen since 1990, largely due to ever-expanding tar sands production, and the Trudeau government must take real climate leadership now. We’ll keep building pressure on Trudeau to end Canada’s reliance on fossil fuels and tax big oil’s excess profits to fund a fair transition to renewable energy at home and around the world.”
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
Israel Admits It ‘Photoshopped’ Image to Portray Assassinated Lebanese Journalist as Hezbollah Operative
The Committee to Protect Journalists regional director called the killing part of “a disturbing pattern” of “Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence.”
Mar 30, 2026
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson has admitted that the military posted a "photoshopped" image of a Lebanese journalist killed in an airstrike in order to portray him as a Hezbollah operative.
On Saturday, three journalists—Ali Shuaib, a veteran correspondent for Al-Manar TV; Fatima Ftouni of the Al Mayadeen channel; and her brother, cameraman Mohammad Ftouni—were killed when four precision missiles hit their car on the Jezzine Road in Southern Lebanon. Several other reporters were injured in the attack.
According to Al Jazeera, the vehicle was clearly marked "press."
In the following hours, the IDF's official social media account posted that it had "ELIMINATED" Shuaib in the attack.
"For years, Ali Hassan Shuaib operated as a Hezbollah Radwan Force terrorist under the guise of a journalist," the post read. "Turns out the 'press vest' was just a cover for terror."
The post, which has more than 2.1 million views on X as of Monday, featured a split image showing Shuaib in a press outfit on one side and in a Hezbollah military uniform on the other.
But according to Fox News' chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yingst, the network later asked the IDF about the photo's source. They were told: "Unfortunately, there isn't really a picture of it. It was photoshopped."
On Monday, Israel issued another statement claiming that Mohammad Ftouni was "an additional terrorist in Hezbollah's military wing, who also operated under the guise of a journalist."
But when asked for evidence to confirm this by the Agence France-Presse, it provided none, with a spokesperson saying, "What we have is what we can state."
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) regional director Sara Qudah called the killings part of "a disturbing pattern in this war and in the decades prior [of] Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence."
Israel accused Shuaib of "consistently working to expose the locations of IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon and along the border, and maintain[ing] continuous contact with other terrorists in the Radwan Force unit in particular, and within the terror organization in general.”
American journalist Ryan Grim, the co-founder of Drop Site News, said: "The Israeli statement itself says that his 'crime' was reporting on troop locations and communicating with sources in Hezbollah. That is called war reporting."
According to a report last month by CPJ, a record 129 journalists were killed in 2025, and Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the worldwide total.
The vast majority of those killed have been Palestinian journalists in Gaza—at least 261 of whom have been killed since October 7, 2023—according to a running tally by the International Federation of Journalists. At least 11 journalists have also been killed in Lebanon since 2023.
In addition to Shuaib and the Ftounis, two others have been killed since Israel's latest onslaught in Lebanon after Hezbollah retaliated against US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Israeli attacks have also resulted in the deaths of photojournalist Hussain Hamood and journalist Mohammed Sherri this month.
An investigation last year by +972 and the Israeli outlet Local Call revealed that the IDF has an informal unit known as the "Legitimization Cell,” which seeks to find tenuous links between journalists and militant groups to justify assassinating them.
As one source explained, the cell's members seek out reporters they believe are “smearing [Israel’s] name in front of the world" by reporting evidence of the country's conduct.
While Al-Manar is the official news outlet for Hezbollah and Al Mayadeen is considered to be closely tied with the militia, Qudah noted that under international law, "journalists are not legitimate targets, regardless of the outlet they work for.”
In less than a month, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,100 people, including at least 121 children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Many pieces of civilian infrastructure—including hospitals, schools, and residential buildings—have been attacked, and Israel has issued forced evacuation orders that have led more than 1 million people to be displaced from their homes.
On the same day that the three journalists were attacked, the World Health Organization reported that nine paramedics were killed across southern Lebanon in a series of attacks on healthcare infrastructure.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that by attacking civilian workers carrying out their professional duties, Israel has violated “the most basic rules of international law."
He called it “a blatant crime that violates all norms and treaties under which journalists are granted international protection during armed conflicts."
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Majority of American Jews Oppose Trump-Netanyahu War on Iran: Polls
"This data is a wake-up call for anyone claiming to speak for the American Jewish community while beating the drums of war," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street.
Mar 30, 2026
Two separate polls released Monday show that a majority of American Jews oppose the US-Israeli war on Iran as the assault drags on into its fifth week, with increasingly dire regional and global consequences.
The surveys were published by the liberal advocacy group J Street and the Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI), a research organization. Both polls of Jewish Americans showed majority opposition—60% and 55%, respectively—to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street's president, said in a statement that "this data is a wake-up call for anyone claiming to speak for the American Jewish community while beating the drums of war."
"Most American Jews see this war for what it is: A reckless, unforced error by a president who has no clear, achievable goals or an exit strategy," said Ben-Ami. "This poll proves that the ‘pro-Israel’ position is the pro-peace position—and that means stopping this war before more lives are lost."
J Street's poll shows that 77% of Jewish Americans don't think US President Donald Trump "has a clear plan and mission for the war." In JEI's survey, 41% of those who expressed opposition to the Iran war said they were against US military action because "we should not go to war without clear provocation and clear objectives."
Jim Gerstein, principal at GBAO Strategies—which conducted the poll on behalf of J Street—said that American Jews "have clearly formed views on the war in Iran."
"A large majority opposes the war, and they do not think Trump has a plan and mission in Iran," said Gerstein. "Jewish voters hold overwhelmingly negative views of both Trump and Netanyahu—Jewish opposition to the war and those leading it is unmistakable."
The surveys mark the latest evidence of widespread US public opposition to the war on Iran. Nearly 60% of American voters overall believe that, one month in, the war has "gone too far," according to a poll released last week, and around 70% oppose a ground invasion of Iran as Trump deploys thousands of troops to the Middle East.
The opposition to the war among Jewish Americans stands in stark contrast to the strong support among Jewish Israelis. The Israel Democracy Institute released a poll on Friday showing that 78% of Jewish Israelis support the assault on Iran.
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Children Among Those Killed by US With Mysterious New Weapon Fired on Iran: Reports
The Precision Strike Missile has never before been used in combat by the US military.
Mar 30, 2026
As experts and investigators analyze one of the first strikes carried out in the US-Israeli war on Iran, mounting reports point to a ballistic missile that had never been used before by the US military in combat—but which may have struck a residential area, a sports hall, and a school in the southern city of Lamerd.
Along with being accused of bombing a school in Minab, killing more than 160 children and teachers, the US reportedly attacked several facilities and civilian areas near an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps facility in Lamerd, killing an additional 21 people, including children.
While analysts have found a US Tomahawk cruise missile was used in the Minab attack, munitions experts interviewed by the BBC and The New York Times in recent days said footage of the attacks and images of the targets after they were struck suggest a short-range ballistic missile called a Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) was used to bomb a sports hall, school, and residential neighborhood in Lamerd.
The missiles are newly developed and are designed to detonate just above a target and propel small tungsten pellets into the surrounding area.
As the Times reported, the PrSM is manufactured by Lockheed Martin and has the capability to hit targets at a 400-mile range, "but additional details about the weapon, including its expected accuracy and the quantity of explosives it carries, remain unknown to the public."
The Times reported that munitions experts had analyzed footage of a weapon in flight over a residential area about 900 feet from the sports hall and school, showing the missile erupting "in a large fireball midair."
Another video showed an explosion in midair just above the sports hall and nearby school, and photos of the aftermath showed the sites with numerous holes, presumably from the tungsten pellets.
The Times also verified a video that showed a plume of smoke rising in an area close to the other strikes at the same time, and local media reports said a cultural center had been hit in that attack. The target couldn't be independently verified.
Late last week, the BBC also reported that the PrSM was likely used on residential buildings in Lamerd on the first day of the war.
Experts at the defense intelligence firm Janes and at McKenzie Intelligence told the BBC that the shape, length, and size of the explosions created in verified footage they analyzed indicated the weapons were likely PrSM missiles.
"US Central Command has admitted to using PrSM in strikes from the desert of an unnamed Gulf country against Iran in the early phases of the conflict," McKenzie Intelligence emphasized.
Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine also celebrated the use of the PrSM in a press conference on March 13, reported the BBC, saying the US military had "made history" and carried out attacks with "precision and determination that comes from relentless training and trust in each other and in their weapon systems."
But a spokesperson for US Central Command on Saturday told the Times that Pentagon officials are "aware of the reports and are looking into them," and claimed US forces "do not indiscriminately target civilians."
The US has also not officially taken responsibility for the attack in Minab that happened on the same day as the ones in Lamerd, but fragments of a Tomahawk missile that were found at the site are among the mounting evidence pointing to the Trump administration as the perpetrator.
The sports hall in Lamerd was reportedly being used by a children's volleyball team at the time of the strike; fourth grader Helma Ahmadizadeh and fifth grader Elham Zaeri were among those killed while at volleyball practice, according to an Iran-based journalist, Negin Bagheri.
Zaeri's father "described her as an avid volleyball player, who would always turn up to the sports hall 20 to 25 minutes early," the BBC reported.
The outlet also said the youngest victim of the suspected PrSM strike was two years old.
At Drop Site News, Mahmoud Aslan reported on the attack on the sports hall shortly after it took place, before analysts linked the bombing to the PrSM.
Hossein Gholami told Aslan his 16-year-old daughter, Zahra, had been training in the facility when he "noticed a strange gathering of people at the corner of the street leading to the sports hall."
“The screaming was rising from a distance," said Gholami. "A colleague ran toward me, waving his arm, and said in a shaken voice: ‘Zahra, the hall, there has been an explosion.'"
“The continuous screaming of the injured mixed with the sounds of secondary explosions," said Gholami, whose daughter was killed in the attack. "The ground was covered in debris and shattered glass. It was difficult to move with all the rubble. Ambulances arrived after about twenty minutes, but most of the injured were in critical condition. The smell of blood and burns covered everything."
“Every time I close my eyes," he said, "I see her face, her smile, and I hear the sound of the explosion."
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