The meeting, which took place on Tuesday 24 May 2022, sought to build on the UK G7 agenda from 2021, which focussed on building back better, greener and more inclusively.
This year delegates focussed on structural change to the labour market in the context of decarbonisation, digitalisation and demographic change.
The Secretary of State outlined the UK's commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, and delivering on the commitments made at COP26, including by greening pension scheme investments.
Work and Pensions Secretary Thérèse Coffey, said:
Moving away from high carbon jobs to green jobs is a crucial part of achieving our net zero goals. The creation of high-quality jobs in sustainable sectors, ensures the opportunities are well paid.
I very much support the sharing of knowledge and expertise with counterparts across the globe and welcome the opportunity to build on the UK's G7 Presidency of 2021. It's essential we work together to grow the economy to address the cost of living.
The UK published the Net Zero Strategy in 2021, committing to help businesses and consumers move to clean power, leveraging up to £90 billion of private investment by 2030, and reduce emissions across the economy by at least 68% by 2030 and 78% by 2035.
Through moving to green jobs or greening existing sectors, the government will support 190,000 green jobs across the UK by 2025 and a total of 440,000 net zero jobs, contributing to our goal to support two million green jobs by 2030.
The meeting closed with all delegates adopting a communique, agreeing concrete actions and joint steps towards a just transition and the creation of decent, high-quality work for a green economy.
To further promote continuity and to prioritize coordinated action across the G7 on critical labour, social and employment issues, delegates also established a standing Employment Working Group within the G7 with the aim to convene as ministers on an annual basis.
Japan will take over the G7 presidency in 2023.
