G7 holds 'strategic' talks in Italy

G7 ministers are meeting in Turin for talks on the environment and climate change, with experts urging highly industrialized countries to use their political influence, wealth and technology to end fossil fuel use.
The G7 meeting in the northern Italian city is the first major political session since the world pledged to phase out coal, oil and gas at the UN climate summit COP28 in December.
It takes place at a time when a new report by a global climate institute shows that the G7 is far from achieving its goals, AFP reported.
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated in Turin, with some burning effigies of G7 leaders, accusing them of failing future generations over the climate crisis.
Rome, which is the rotating chair of the G7, said it wanted Turin to be a "strategic link" between last year's conference of the countries in Dubai and COP29, which will be held in November in Azerbaijan.
The aim is to "make the course charted by COP28 practical, real, concrete," Italian Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pishetto Fratin said ahead of the meeting.
Italy, a climate change hotspot vulnerable to forest fires, droughts and retreating glaciers, is putting "biodiversity, ecosystems, warming seas" at the top of the agenda, he said.
Delegations from Dubai and Azerbaijan are in Turin, as is Brazil, which is hosting the G20 this year. /BGNES