The G7 Summit is taking place in Evian on 15-17 June against a precarious global outlook, a worsening energy crisis, and heightened geopolitical tensions. This environment also affects how countries can pursue climate action. As chair, France has avoided mentioning climate change by name, reflecting its efforts to preserve unity amid geopolitical turbulence and avoid clashing with the U.S. administration. Taking a page from Canada’s playbook as G7 chair last year, France has however worked to advance climate-related issues through discussions on energy security, economic resilience, critical minerals, water pollution, and oceans.
Despite and even because of these constraints, the summit can and must deliver meaningful outcomes for climate action. Even if unlikely to land in the communiqué, those leaders who remain committed can use the moment to signal support for further action in the sidelines. And whether framed as climate policy or not, decarbonisation and energy transition challenges run through the G7’s core concerns.
Three priorities stand out:
1. Energy and economic security
The energy shock triggered by the US-Iran conflict, rising electricity demand from AI and data centres and the broader transformation of energy systems have renewed concerns about energy security. Building on discussions throughout the French presidency, Evian should resist calls for a renewed dependency on fossil fuels and instead strengthen cooperation on clean energy as the smartest response to the crisis. The summit should also reinforce joint work on grids, clean power, electrification and clean cooking, to strengthen energy security while reducing exposure to fossil fuel price volatility.
The summit should also advance implementation of the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan agreed under Canada’s presidency to address concerns over supply chain dominance. Leaders should focus on practical cooperation to unlock investment in responsible mining, processing and recycling. In doing so, they should avoid a race to the bottom on environmental standards and promote partnerships with producing countries that support industrialisation, value addition and broader development objectives.
More broadly, discussions in Evian will take place against the backdrop of growing concerns over industrial overcapacity and market distortions in key sectors for decarbonisation. Rather than framing the issue solely through trade defence measures, G7 countries should focus on strengthening their own industrial competitiveness, diversifying supply chains and expanding cooperation with emerging economies that play an increasingly important role in clean energy value chains.
2. Development finance
The crisis in Iran dramatically worsened problems of debt liquidity and insolvency, including for upper-middle-income countries. G7 leaders should acknowledge the limits of the current approach to sovereign debt and support efforts to ease debt service burdens, ensuring that financing solutions are effective and adequate to create fiscal space for investment in development policies and growth.
Evian should also ensure better access to affordable capital for emerging and developing economies, through smarter prudential regulation and credit rating methodologies that support national climate and development plans, without jeopardising financial stability. Amid drastic cuts to aid budgets, leaders should focus on making existing finance easier to access, expanding the use of guarantees, and ensuring support responds to national development, transition and resilience priorities.
This also means resisting efforts to dilute climate and transition objectives within multilateral development banks, including ongoing debates over the World Bank’s climate finance targets. In their exchanges, G7 leaders should hold the line on MDB mandates and preserve space for cooperation with emerging economies on finance, resilience and transition planning.
3. Resilience and adaptation
Resilience has been a durable priority throughout the French presidency. The Evian summit should turn these conversations into practical outcomes to strengthen cooperation on early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure and buildings, and disaster risk financing, including through risk-pooling mechanisms and improved insurance access.
France should also use its presidency to deepen engagement with Small Island Developing States and other vulnerable countries, including through support for ocean protection, adaptation finance and emergency preparedness. These issues offer one of the clearest opportunities to sustain international cooperation at a time when progress in other areas of climate governance has become more difficult.
Across all three priorities, the G7’s relevance will depend on its ability to connect its own economic and security priorities with those of non-member countries. France’s decision to invite the leaders of Brazil, India, Kenya and South Korea to Evian creates an opportunity to advance cooperation beyond the formal summit agenda, an expression of how global diplomacy is adapting by necessity. Even without consensus among G7 members, engagement with emerging powers would help sustain dialogue, build coalitions, and maintain momentum on issues that will remain central to climate and economic governance in the years ahead.
As next host of the G20 in 2027 and the G7 in 2028, the United Kingdom will have to maintain momentum on many of these issues. Evian offers an early indication of how future presidencies can continue to advance climate cooperation in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical environment.
