“Let’s be clear, we are not going to talk about climate.” Monique Barbut, France’s environment minister, made this announcement bluntly to the media and to NGOs in recent weeks. France, which is hosting a meeting of the G7’s environment ministers on Thursday and Friday in Paris, has had to make compromises to keep the Americans on board. The climate is one of the red lines for Donald Trump, the openly climate-sceptic US president. The issue, therefore, will not be addressed – at least not directly – during the summit bringing together the environment ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In the past, these countries, responsible for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, managed to secure progress for the climate. In 2022, for example, they pledged to decarbonize the “majority” of their power sector by 2035. But since Trump’s return to power, any common agreement on climate issues has become impossible.
Under these circumstances, should the other six nations have chosen to publish a statement without the US? “The presidency’s priority is to preserve the unity of the G7. If we start talking about climate, there is no more G7,” explained a person working at France’s environment ministry. The issue remains a “priority,” but the G7 is “not the right forum” to address it, they said.
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