PARIS — France removed climate change from the agenda of this week’s G7 talks to prevent a rift with the United States, according to a French government official.
Environment ministers from the G7 nations are meeting in Paris on Thursday and Friday to discuss issues ranging from biodiversity to water resources.
But the French hosts deliberately avoided putting global warming on the agenda to appease the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, who has dismissed climate change as a “con job” and withdrawn his country from several international climate bodies.
“We have chosen not to tackle the climate issue head-on,” an adviser to French Ecological Transition Minister Monique Barbut told reporters. “Why? Because the United States’ positions on this issue are well known, and we felt … that tackling this issue head-on with the United States within the G7 framework would not send a message of unity.”
