Extreme Temperature Diary- Sunday June 22nd, 2025/Main Topic: G7 Leaders Missing the Boat on Climate

https://www.commondreams.org/news/g7-summit-2025

G7 Leaders Blasted for ‘Morally Indefensible’ Failure on Crises of War, Poverty, and Climate

Amid interlocking catastrophes, the world’s wealthiest and most powerful nations were told they “cannot retreat and hide.”

Jessica Corbett

The Group of Seven Leaders’ Summit concluded in Canada on Tuesday with joint statements on artificial intelligencecritical minerals supply chainsforeign interferencequantum innovationtransnational crime, and wildfires, but campaigners called out attendees for failing to “take collective action to end conflicts, address climate change, and reduce poverty and inequality.”

Although U.S. President Donald Trump bailed early, representatives from the other G7 member countries—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—and the European Union gathered in Kananaskis, Alberta from Sunday to Tuesday, with appearances by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

“The summit fell short of delivering the leadership the world needs,” the global advocacy group Oxfam said in a lengthy statement after the meeting ended. “Nowhere was this more apparent than in how this G7 totally missed its chance to exert any meaningful pressure toward peace in the Middle East.”

“Even its call for a de-escalation between Israel and Iran, which is desperately needed, was corrupted by geo-political partiality and bias,” the group continued, calling for “an immediate end to hostilities in the region,” including “Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza.”

“With a planned 28% reduction by 2026 compared to 2024, these cuts are not just a policy failure but put the lives of millions of people at risk, especially those already facing hunger, poverty, and ever-worsening effects of climate change.”

Unlike the 2002 G8 Summit in Kananaskis, “where leaders committed to an Africa Action Plan and development cooperation,” G7 leaders are now “pursuing the largest aid cuts in its history,” Oxfam also noted. “With a planned 28% reduction by 2026 compared to 2024, these cuts are not just a policy failure but put the lives of millions of people at risk, especially those already facing hunger, poverty, and ever-worsening effects of climate change.”

“In a world grappling with war, rising inequality, food insecurity, and climate breakdown,” Oxfam declared, “the G7’s retreat from responsibility is not only morally indefensible but also strategically short-sighted.”

Climate campaigners also took aim at summit attendees, with Greenpeace International’s Tracy Carty saying Tuesday that “as G7 leaders grapple with how to de-escalate multiple conflicts they can ill afford to ignore another threat to global stability—the worsening climate emergency.”

“But even before the latest intensification in the Middle East, the climate had already been sidelined, as the G7—under Canada’s leadership—tiptoed around Trump’s climate denialism,” Carty continued. “The leaders of these nations—among the most responsible for global emissions—cannot retreat and hide.”

“The G7 must urgently work towards bold action to cut emissions, hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, and ensure big polluters pay their fair share for the climate damage already unfolding across the globe,” she asserted.

Her colleague at Greenpeace Canada, Keith Stewart, pointed out that “Canada is literally a country on fire, but despite wanting to discuss an improved joint response to wildfires, it allowed the summit to end with a statement on the issue that included no mention of tackling the climate crisis fueling the latest disaster.”

📣This year's #G7Summit ended with clean energy & fossil fuel subsidy reform missing from final statements. Climate received only a passing reference in the Chair’s statement.IISD's @patriciafuller.bsky.social stresses previous climate commitments remain on the books. 👇 www.iisd.org/articles/sta…

IISD Energy (@energy.iisd.org) 2025-06-18T01:49:54.478Z

Amara Possian, 350.org’s Canada team lead, targeted Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, arguing that “as one of the world’s richest, most polluting countries, Canada has a responsibility to lead on climate justice” and he “should use the G7 presidency to raise the bar.”

Specifically, “to do our fair share, Canada must triple climate finance through grants, cancel Global South debt, make polluters and billionaires pay, and end trade rules that block climate action,” Possian said. “This is a defining test of Canada’s commitment to long-term security and prosperity.”

350.org leaders from Japan, the United States, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean also took aim at G7 leaders who “missed a crucial opportunity to lead on climate and to stand up against fossil fuel interests and the Trump administration.”

U.S. senior policy analyst JL Andrepont said that “Trump’s early exit from the G7 summit in Canada is part of a continued effort to remove our leadership and commitments from the world stage. We cannot move forward quickly enough on the needed clean, just energy transition with a U.S. government hostile to the very concept of the climate crisis and the readily available tools necessary to fight it—justly sourced and implemented, low-cost wind and solar.”

“The rest of the planet must step forward in our absence to keep the fight to end the fossil fuel era going,” Andrepont added. “Unfortunately, G7 leaders followed in Trump’s footsteps and ended the meeting pretending climate change doesn’t exist. Our people and our planet deserve better.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Heat waves in the US are increasing, in all key metrics. Graph via US EPA

Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T14:29:33.054Z

Over the past decade the Gulf has seen a huge spike in heat, and likely coincidently (or maybe not) a huge spike in Major Hurricane landfalls.Today is #ShowYourStripes day!Thanks Ed Hawkins for the telling visual. Get yours:ShowYourStripes.info observablehq.com/@climatecent…

Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T11:42:02.595Z

The biggest contributor towards #climate driven societal collapse is insufficient food – another is insufficient waterFor a worst-case scenario, read my short story THE WALL in Emerging Worlds here:emergingworlds.co.uk/2024/02/08/t… www.theguardian.com/environment/…

Prof Bill McGuire (@profbillmcguire.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T13:24:24.680Z

What a project! A group students talking to climate scientists. It was a pleasure to be part of this and share my views on climate and the role of scientific information in society.Open access.link.springer.com/book/10.1007…

Reto Knutti (@retoknutti.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T13:57:23.117Z

Emissions are not distributed equally. Just 5% of power plants generate 75% of power sector emissions; 12% of people consume half the beef produced; 2% of aviation emissions come from the 0.003% who are (private jet users; etc.What a great opportunity for targeted reductions!

Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) 2025-06-22T14:51:44.305Z

In the past year we've had a series of papers with results that've shocked #climate scientists – the globe is heating #FasterThanExpected & we don't fully know whyThe public discourse is not keeping up.Here's a series of 5 new studies that climate hawks & journos need to have on their radar 🧵

Dr. Aaron Thierry (@thierryaaron.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T11:38:45.845Z

It's #ShowYourStripes day–a striking way to visualize amount of #climate warming that has occurred. In this short thread, I present "warming stripes" two ways for 3 major California cities (Sacramento, San Francisco, & Los Angeles), & reflect on context. #CAwx #CAwater #CAfire

Daniel Swain (@weatherwest.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T16:27:55.000Z

Huge early season heat dome setting up in the eastern half of the nation Sunday through early next week. 150 record highs in jeopardy of being broken. Max highs near 100 with peak feels like temps near 110! Stays safe!!

Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T19:47:54.621Z

👀 Scoop: Trump and Republicans want USPS to sell off its brand new EVs and chargers.That would mean literally **ripping up post office parking lots** to auction off assets with no private-sector value.It’s buried in the Senate’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”www.washingtonpost.com/business/202…

Jacob Bogage (@jacobbogage.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T13:22:26.779Z

I'm genuinely surprised @aunz.theconversation.com would publish such a misleading article. This is not 'journalism you can trust' it's propaganda. theconversation.com/australia-co…#auspol #climate

Polly Hemming (@pollyjhemming.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T08:29:55.896Z

Only 1200 miles?Call me when you can cover the 25K of Earth’s circumference electrek.co/2025/06/20/b…

Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T15:52:40.845Z

Solar + storage is now $104 per MWh in Las Vegas or similar regions for nearly 100% clean firm power. There is no way new nuclear can compete with this. Even new gas plants will struggle and that is assuming access to cheap gas over the life-cycle of the plant, which is kind of a crazy gamble TBH.

Robert Ferry (@robertferry.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T02:33:40.325Z

Here’s the newsletter, which cites an older report finding how plastic bag bans in New Jersey, Vermont, as well as Portland, OR, Santa Barbara, CA, and 18 cities in Pennsylvania have "reduced the number of single-use plastic bags used each year by around 6 billion.” (!!)

Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) 2025-06-19T23:41:36.273Z

A while back when I discussed plastic pollution in my newsletter Talking Climate, I said the most important way we can cut it is not by recycling (only 8% is actually recycled) but rather by advocating for plastic bans where we live. And now, guess what – there’s peer-reviewed evidence this works!

Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) 2025-06-19T23:39:21.052Z

In case you missed it, I gathered a team of experts and we answered 50 of the most common questions that people have about pursuing a career in marine biology! Please read and share widely.www.southernfriedscience.com/marine-biolo…

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 (@whysharksmatter.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T19:03:52.825Z

The photons I caught here were emitted a bit before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built.Crescent Nebula and surroundings in Cygnus.🔭🧪 #astrophotography

Thomas Fuchs (@thomasfuchs.at) 2025-06-22T17:57:04.585Z

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *