France on Thursday defended keeping climate change off the agenda at a meeting of G7 environment ministers in Paris, saying it was necessary to avoid a clash with the US.
French Minister for Ecological Transition, Biodiversity and International Negotiations on Climate and Nature Monique Barbut said that G7 ministers had made progress on environmental issues even if climate change was studiously avoided on the opening day of the talks.
“If I had tackled the issue head-on, there would have been no G7,” Barbut told reporters during a trip to Fontainebleau forest south of the French capital with the visiting ministers.
Photo: EPA
Earlier, Barbut had said the G7 “must remain a forum for convergence” and France as host was prioritizing unity among the group at a time when environmental protection was slipping down the global agenda.
Her ministry said that the two-day meeting would focus on “less contentious issues” to appease its largest and most powerful member.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has withdrawn the US from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office last year.
The other G7 members: Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and the UK, sent their environment ministers to Paris, but Washington dispatched Usha-Maria Turner, an assistant administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Barbut said that France wanted “a successful G7 by addressing essential topics — but I didn’t tackle them head-on.”
“If you look at all the topics we addressed, they are all linked to climate change,” she said. “They are all either consequences or causes... No one, including the Americans, disputes that.”
The US had been “extremely cooperative” and five texts had already been approved, she said.
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