G7 should invest $10 trillion to stoke climate-friendly recovery

G7 countries should invest $10t to stoke an investment-driven  recovery that puts Covid-19 vaccines in arms and triggers a sweeping  energy transformation to slow climate change, according to a report  requested by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

US President Joe Biden  is expected to join other Group of Seven leaders at a G7 summit chaired  by Britain's Johnson in Cornwall, southern England, on June 11-13.

Founded  in 1975 as a forum for the Wests richest nations to discuss crises such  as the OPEC oil embargo, the G7 will discuss what it perceives as the  biggest threats: China, Russia, climate change and the coronavirus  pandemic.

Nicholas Stern, professor of economics at the London  School of Economics, said in a report for Johnson that the G7 was a  crucial opportunity for the West's richest economies to make a real  change to the global economy.

"The transition to a zero-emissions  and climate-resilient world provides the greatest economic, business and  commercial opportunity of our time," Stern said in the report.

"At  the heart of the proposed vision for the economic response to the  pandemic is a coordinated global programme of investment for recovery,  reconstruction and transformation that can boost all forms of capital  physical, human, natural and social," Stern said.

G7 countries, he  said, should set a collective goal to raise annual investment by 2 per  cent of GDP above pre-pandemic levels for this decade and beyond and  improve the quality of investment - equal to about $1t per year in  additional investment over the next decade.

The G7 leaders should  ensure a timely global roll-out of vaccines by immediately closing the  $20 billion funding cap of COVAX, a global programme to provide vaccines  mainly for poor countries.

After Johnson called for countries to  do more than produce  "hot air" rhetoric on climate, the report said the  G7 should come up with credible ways to meet Biden's climate goals.

The  G7 should commit to eliminating all fossil-fuel subsidies no later than  2025, lead a sweeping energy transition, end overseas support for  fossil-fuel investments and consider a minimum corporate profit tax of  21 per cent.