Overview
- The G7 environment ministers' meeting, which opened Thursday in Paris, centers on biodiversity, oceans, desertification, water security and resilience while leaving climate change and a fossil-fuel phaseout off the agenda.
- The United States sent EPA deputy Usha-Maria Turner rather than a cabinet minister, a low-profile presence that follows President Donald Trump’s rollback of climate policy, including exiting the Paris Agreement.
- France is pitching an Alliance for the Financing of Nature and Peoples to draw public and private money, with up to $800 million for African parks reported by sources as a possible announcement.
- Environmental groups condemned the climate omission, with Réseau Action Climat calling it a surrender of leadership and 350.org warning of a leadership vacuum, while WWF said any nature funds must be additional.
- A French adviser said any political talk on climate will not appear in the joint communiqué, and France will skip next week’s Santa Marta fossil-fuel conference in Colombia, sending its climate ambassador instead ahead of the June G7 leaders’ summit in Evian.