On this day, June 1979, the declaration at the end of the G7 Meeting in Tokyo contained this gem.
3. We pledge our countries to increase as far as possible coal use, production, and trade, without damage to the environment. We will endeavor to substitute coal for oil in the industrial and electrical sectors, encourage the improvement of coal transport, maintain positive attitudes toward investment for coal projects, pledge not to interrupt coal trade under long-term contracts unless required to do so by a national emergency, and maintain, by measures which do not obstruct coal imports, those levels of domestic coal production which are desirable for reasons of energy, regional and social policy. “We need to expand alternative sources of energy, especially those which will help to prevent further pollution, particularly increases of carbon dioxide and sulphur oxides in the atmosphere.” http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1979tokyo/communique.html
The G7 had started in the mid-70s, initially as a one-off meeting hosted by the French. Everyone was in a panic about the economy (stagflation), the uppityness (and yes, I mean that – freighted with all the horrors of white supremacism) of people of colour in the Majority World, and also the unruliness of the locals (strikes etc).
Why this matters.
Promises been going on a long time, haven’t they?
What happened next?
Climate was not there on the agenda in Venice 1980, and once Reagan came in, that was it – it would be another ten years before the G7 pretended to be green.