Five Climate Issues to Watch When Trump Goes to Canada
CLIMATEWIRE | The world's richest nations are gathering Sunday in the Canadian Rockies for a summit that could reveal whether President Donald Trump's policies are shaking global climate efforts.
The Group of Seven meeting comes at a challenging time for international climate policy. Trump's tariff seesaw has cast a shade over the global economy, and his domestic policies have threatened billions of dollars in funding for clean energy programs. Those pressures are colliding with record-breaking temperatures worldwide and explosive demand for energy, driven by power-hungry data centers linked to artificial intelligence technologies.
On top of that, Trump has threatened to annex the host of the meeting — Canada — and members of his Cabinet have taken swipes at Europe's use of renewable energy. Rather than being aligned with much of the world's assertion that fossil fuels should be tempered, Trump embraces the opposite position — drill for more oil and gas and keep burning coal, while repealing environmental regulations on the biggest sources of U.S. carbon pollution.
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Those moves illustrate his rejection of climate science and underscore his outlying positions on global warming in the G7.
Here are five things to know about the summit.
Who will be there?
The group comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — plus the European Union. Together they account for more than 40 percent of gross domestic product globally and around a quarter of all energy-related carbon dioxide pollution, according to the International Energy Agency. The U.S. is the only one among them that is not trying to hit a carbon reduction goal.
Some emerging economies have also been invited, including Mexico, India, South Africa and Brazil, the host of this year's COP30 climate talks in November.
Ahead of the meeting, the office of Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, said he and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva agreed to strengthen cooperation on energy security and critical minerals. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would be having "quite a few" bilateral meetings but that his schedule was in flux.
The G7 first came together 50 years ago following the Arab oil embargo. Since then, its seven members have all joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. The U.S. is the only nation in the group that has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, which counts almost every country in the world as a signatory.
What's on the table?
Among Canada's top priorities as host are strengthening energy security and fortifying critical mineral supply chains. Carney would also like to see some agreement on joint wildfire action.
Expanding supply chains for critical minerals — and competing more aggressively with China over those resources — could be areas of common ground among the leaders. Climate change is expected to remain divisive. Looming over the discussions will be tariffs — which Trump has applied across the board — because they will have an impact on the clean energy transition.
'I think probably the majority of the conversation will be less about climate per se, or certainly not using climate action as the frame, but more about energy transition and infrastructure as a way of kind of bridging the known gaps between most of the G7 and where the United States is right now,' said Dan Baer, director of the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
What are the possible outcomes?
The leaders could issue a communique at the end of their meeting, but those statements are based on consensus, something that would be difficult to reach without other G7 countries capitulating to Trump. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that nations won't try to reach a joint agreement, in part because bridging gaps on climate change could be too hard.
Instead, Carney could issue a chair's summary or joint statements based on certain issues.
The question is how far Canada will go to accommodate the U.S., which could try to roll back past statements on advancing clean energy, said Andrew Light, former assistant secretary of Energy for international affairs, who led ministerial-level negotiations for the G7.
'They might say, rather than watering everything down that we accomplished in the last four years, we just do a chair's statement, which summarizes the debate,' Light said. 'That will show you that you didn't get consensus, but you also didn't get capitulation.'
What to watch for
If there is a communique, Light says he'll be looking for whether there is tougher language on China and any signal of support for science and the Paris Agreement. During his first term, Trump refused to support the Paris accord in the G7 and G20 declarations.
The statement could avoid climate and energy issues entirely. But if it backtracks on those issues, that could be a sign that countries made a deal by trading climate-related language for something else, Light said.
Baer of Carnegie said a statement framed around energy security and infrastructure could be seen as a 'pragmatic adaptation' to the U.S. administration, rather than an indication that other leaders aren't concerned about climate change.
Climate activists have lower expectations.
'Realistically, we can expect very little, if any, mention of climate change,' said Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada.
'The message we should be expecting from those leaders is that climate action remains a priority for the rest of the G7 … whether it's on the transition away from fossil fuels and supporting developing countries through climate finance,' she said. 'Especially now that the U.S. is stepping back, we need countries, including Canada, to be stepping up.'
Best- and worst-case scenarios
The challenge for Carney will be preventing any further rupture with Trump, analysts said.
In 2018, Trump made a hasty exit from the G7 summit, also in Canada that year, due largely to trade disagreements. He retracted his support for the joint statement.
'The best, [most] realistic case outcome is that things don't get worse,' said Baer.
The worst-case scenario? Some kind of 'highly personalized spat' that could add to the sense of disorder, he added.
'I think the G7 on the one hand has the potential to be more important than ever, as fewer and fewer platforms for international cooperation seem to be able to take action,' Baer said. 'So it's both very important and also I don't have super-high expectations.'
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