Climate change off the table at G7 environmental summit, courtesy of US

PARIS (CN) — On Thursday and Friday, G7 environmental ministers gathered in Paris to address everything but climate change in a bid to keep the U.S. from backing out of the meeting.

"Let's be clear, we're not going to talk about climate," the French Ecological Transition Minister Monique Barbut told reporters Friday ahead of the conference. "[The U.S.] will come if we avoid contentious topics. We had to find a theme that would keep them from slamming the door in our faces."

Barbut said these forums must remain a space of "fruitful dialogue regardless of political changes, allowing the group to focus on "priorities likely to achieve consensus."

"Climate change, to put it bluntly, is not directly among them," she said two minutes into her opening speech, adding that the topics discussed were nonetheless at the heart of the climate issue.

The two days of work sessions tiptoed around the issue: Ministers addressed ocean preservation, biodiversity, the challenges of desertification and water resources, sustainable building structures and priorities to be highlighted in the year's biggest international climate events.

"It's somewhat surprising, astonishing and a bit distressing to addressenvironmental issues without addressing the issue of climate, which is, after all, a central point regarding environmental problems," said Nicolas Viovy, a researcher at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences who specializes in the impact of climate change on vegetation. "All the more so because the other issues that will be addressed — biodiversity, the oceans, etc. — are not independent of it."

U.S. President Donald Trump has been outspoken about his beliefs on climate change, which he called the "greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world" at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 2025. On Jan. 27, the U.S. officially withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, joining the only three other countries in the world that are not part of the accord: Iran, Libya and Yemen.

François Gemenne, a professor at renowned business school HEC Paris and coauthor of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report, said that leaving climate change off the table would be an obvious "elephant in the room," and ministers will inevitably talk about "nothing" without addressing it. In his view, the situation is tragic because it shows that there's no longer an agreement on common scientific foundations.

"It is obviously a way of trying to curry favor with the United States; G7 members know very well that if the climate issue comes up on the agenda, there will be no joint statement," he said. "What we clearly see today is that governments are not acting rationally in the sense that they do not all recognize scientific reality, and furthermore, they have completely divergent objectives and are therefore no longer moving toward a common goal."

Gemenne explained that 11 years ago, this situation seemed unfathomable. He said when the Paris Climate Agreement was reached, it rested on two illusions: that governments will act rationally based on scientific facts and converge toward a common goal.

"What we clearly see today is that governments are not acting rationally in the sense that they do not all recognize scientific reality, and furthermore, they have completely divergent objectives and are therefore no longer moving toward a common goal," he said. "Eleven years ago, no one imagined that governments — especially democratic ones — would actually call climate science into question, nor did anyone imagine that there would be such tension and that the world would be so divided, with so much difficulty converging toward a common goal."

In Gemenne's view, climate has not only become a political issue, but is now an ideological one, particularly in the U.S. And this is a challenge for scientists, because it's a matter of belief and opinions rather than fact.

There might be other issues at play; addressing and fighting climate change would mean changing the way that the economy functions, according to Viovy. Not wanting to make these adjustments could encourage people to embrace climate denial.

Now, amid the ongoing Iran war and regional crisis, the environment will likely remain a low priority for the U.S., according to Viovy. However, some issues — like Strait of Hormuz blockages — may actually benefit the climate in the long run.

"In a way, unwittingly, through the issues surrounding the Strait and oil access, it might actually be Donald Trump who ends up protecting the climate … This is because of both the rising price of oil and restricted access to resources for several countries that will force certain measures to be taken, perhaps accelerating the development of renewable energy or finding other solutions," he said. "Generally speaking, by slowing down the economy, it is likely that over the next two or three years, we will see a reduction in CO2 emissions resulting from the current crisis."

However, closing the dialogue on climate change will likely have negative impacts in the years to come.

"All of the scientific studies and reports highlight the urgent need for strong and ambitious climate action to preserve decent living conditions worldwide, including for the inhabitants of G7 member states such as France and the United States," said Gonéri Le Cozannet, a member of France's High Council on Climate. "Making progress on this issue will require cooperation and dialogue, particularly within the G7, and any delays or missed opportunities will have consequences in terms of losses and damages."