G7, Climate Change and Bristol: The new Atlantic Charter

Yesterday, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and the President of the United States, Joe Biden agreed on a new Atlantic Charter in advance of the G7 Summit.

The new agreement echoes events of 80 years ago when the Bristol affiliated HMS Prince of Wales predecessor carried Churchill to Canada in 1941 to create the original declaration with Roosevelt.

Bristol is the UK’s only city that will be hosting a celebration of the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Atlantic Charter with support from senior Royal Navy and US Diplomats in July and a series of business meetings to explore international trade, inward investment and tourism opportunities. You can read more at HMS Prince of Wales and the City of Bristol Affiliation. 

Peaches Golding OBE, Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Bristol, who represents the Queen in the city, said:

“Bristol is a maritime city, which has always had strong links with the USA from the time of Cabot, through Brunel and the SS Great Britain.

“This weekend in July is usually when Bristol people gather for the Bristol Harbour Festival, which sadly will not happen this year. However, the Atlantic Charter Celebrations is a great opportunity for the people of Bristol to celebrate the events which shaped our world today, with NATO among the consequences of that historic meeting.

“With both US and Royal Navy personnel visiting the city it is a great showcase for Bristol.”

James Durie, Chief Executive, Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Initiative said:

“Bristol’s affiliation to the new HMS Prince of Wales is prestigious and a major opportunity for the city as the ship carries out its duties around the globe. For our employers and their staff having Bristol affiliated to the ship will undoubtedly help them build new networks & contacts and showcase many trade promotion opportunities across the world. This new Atlantic Charter, which has been announced from our region of the UK can help revitalise this great alliance between our countries to work together to rebuild and decarbonise our economies and drive shared prosperity."

Ameeta Virk, US Growth Markets Leader at Business West said:

"In the spirit of the original signing of the Atlantic Charter so many years ago, here in the South West, we are building an even brighter future through trade. As history has shown, trade is a powerful conduit for the exchange of technology and innovation, and we believe in its potential to help this renewed Atlantic Charter realise its aims.”

The new Atlantic Charter set out a global vision to deepen cooperation in democracy and human rights, defence and security, science and innovation, and economic prosperity, with renewed joint efforts to tackle the challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and emerging health threats.

The new charter outlines eight commitments and aspirations for a more peaceful and prosperous future. 

With respect to the climate crisis, the charter sets out that:

The world has reached a critical point where it must act urgently and ambitiously to tackle the climate crisis, protect biodiversity, and sustain nature. Our countries will prioritise these issues in all our international action.

Climate Change will be one of the main themes at the G7 Summit, read our article: G7 and Climate Change: what you need to know. 

In their Joint Statement they made a commitment to:

• Rally all countries to strengthen their climate ambitions; achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement keep within reach the goal of limiting global average temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels; and bend the curve of biodiversity loss by 2030.
• Champion the best available science – particularly reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
• Welcome global partnerships, including the COP26 Policy Dialogue on a Transition to Sustainable Agriculture and the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate to increase and accelerate research and development for innovation in agricultural food systems.
• Support a resilient transition to decarbonised economies with quality job opportunities; and make progress on climate action in a gender responsive manner.
• Underscore the commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest, and call on all other countries to do likewise.
• Welcome the G7’s creation of an Industrial Decarbonisation Agenda (IDA), which will help drive innovation in, and lower costs of, the decarbonisation of heavy industrial sectors around the world.
• Achieve an ambitious outcome at COP26 and to the collective developed country goal of mobilising $100 billion annually through to 2025 from a wide variety of public and private sources.
• Increase climate finance from 2020, including for adaptation, and are continuing to pursue additional opportunities to increase climate finance mobilisation.
• Provide support to countries to enable adaptation, and address the effects of climate impacts, including through finance for nature-based solutions, and by scaling up disaster risk-management, including through the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership.
• Mainstream nature across all sectors and into economic decision-making.
• Work more closely together on forests, including through the Forest Agriculture, and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue, the ocean, and finance for nature to conserve, protect and restore natural ecosystems including by championing an ambitious post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
• Recognise the impact that energy has on national security, economy, net-zero ambitions, and shared prosperity.
• Launch a new ‘Strategic Energy Dialogue’, led by the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the U.S. Department of Energy. This dialogue aims to deepen cooperation in areas such as the development and deployment of innovative, clean energy technologies, industrial decarbonisation, nuclear energy, energy security and resilience, joint priorities in multilateral energy forums, and shared science, research, and innovation cooperation. 

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