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

The Group of Seven Leaders' Summit concluded in Canada on Tuesday with joint statements on artificial intelligence, critical minerals supply chains, foreign interference, quantum innovation, transnational 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."

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."