The G7 Summit: A History and Recap
- Aarush Santoshi
- Jul 17, 2021
- 6 min read
Edited by: Noah Darby
From June 11 to June 13, 2021, world leaders from all around the world assembled in Cornwall, United Kingdom as part of the 47th G7 (Group of Seven) Summit. Leaders of the G7 member states–the United States, the UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, and Italy–along with representatives from the European Union (EU) and guests from Australia, India, South Africa, and South Korea met to discuss climate change, free and fair trade, global pandemic recovery, and preparedness for future pandemics. The overarching theme: building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic. But what exactly is the G7 summit, and why is it such an important event?
History and Practices of the G7
The G7 member states all possess highly industrialized democracies and are considered “advanced economies” by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The member states represent 10% of the world’s population and 46% of global nominal GDP. The group, which was formed in 1975 to provide a forum for “noncommunist powers to address pressing economic concerns”, was initially composed of six members (its current members excluding Canada, which joined the following year). Russia joined in 1997, creating G8 or the Group of Eight, but was ousted from the coalition in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea. It is important to note that G7 is not a formal organization like the UN; it exists for the purpose of influencing global economic trends through recommendations and making joint efforts to mitigate global issues. The Canadian government describes the G7 as a body that “plays a powerful catalyst role on issues that are later taken up by other fora with broader global and regional membership.”
The G7, however, hasn’t escaped its share of controversy, one example being the Plaza Accord of 1985. Decided upon by what were then the G5 countries (the US, the UK, Japan, France, and Germany), the agreement was an attempt to depreciate the value of the US dollar in comparison to the the Japanese Yen and German Deutsche mark with the hope of correcting trade imbalances. However, the agreement backfired due to “major meddling in international currency markets” which most negatively affected Japan. Non-member states were reasonably irritated by the lack of transparency when it came to macroeconomic decisions; these decisions would inevitably affect them because the decision makers had global spheres of economic and political influence. The G7’s power extends to matters regarding the military—major topics at recent years’ summits have included nuclear weapons in North Korea, ISIS, and the Syrian crisis—and the group has received considerable criticism (in the form of demonstrations at summits) about its exclusivity and broad decision-making capabilities. Some foreign policy analysts have called for G7’s dissolution, believing that its prestige has been surpassed by that of the G20 (Group of Twenty), a group of 20 countries including the G7 member states with similar goals as the G7.
Despite ongoing debates over its existence, the G7 has continued to hold yearly summits hosted by one of the member states in a predetermined order (this year’s summit’s president country was the UK). When most people think about the summit, they think about the Leaders’ Summit, which is when the heads of member states meet and draft a communique. Before this can happen, sherpas and sous-sherpas, who are appointed by the leaders of the countries they represent, act as emissaries and have smaller meetings about global issues. There are also relatively frequent Foreign and Development Ministers’ meetings. Furthermore, smaller groups called G7 engagement groups have separate meetings in the months before the forum and make recommendations to the summit. These engagement groups include the Business 7, Civil Society 7, Labour 7, Science 7, Think Tank 7, Women 7, and Youth 7.
Some accomplishments of the G7 in recent years include the Global Apollo Programme (which was launched at the 2015 summit with the goal of making clean energy cheaper and more economically sustainable than energy from coal by the year 2025), the establishment of a Gender Equality Advisory Council in 2018 (the council was established under the Canadian presidency with the goal of increasing gender-based analysis and empowering women throughout G7), counter-terrorism efforts following the London attacks in 2005 (the events of 7/7 took place a day before the conclusion of the 2005 summit), reconstruction aid following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, and work with nuclear nonproliferation.
The 47th G7 Summit
The 47th G7 Summit saw considerable progress made in some areas, and little to no headway made in others:
COVID-19: As previously mentioned, the ‘theme’ of this year’s summit was building back better from the pandemic, and of course this couldn’t be properly addressed without talking about vaccines and vaccine distribution. Perhaps one of the biggest announcements that came from the summit was the pledge by G7 member states to supply a total of one billion COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries, to be distributed under the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX scheme. COVAX is one of the pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, an initiative launched by the WHO, the European Commission, and France. The scheme aims to achieve equitable distribution of vaccines by “acting as a platform that will support the research, development and manufacturing of a wide range of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, and negotiate their pricing.” Although one billion doses sounds significant, it will not be able to end the pandemic for low income countries; some estimates put the necessary amount of doses at 11 billion.
Climate change: Climate change has been a hot-button sociopolitical and economic issue, especially over the last few years, and it is one the G7 has tried to tackle in the past (the Global Apollo Programme from 2015 is an example of this). Beyond the adoption of the Montreal Protocol (which began the gradual phasing out of destructive CFCs) in 1987 and the Paris Climate Accord of 2016 (which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally), concerted multinational efforts to combat climate change have been limited because of competing interests and varying degrees of prioritization. This year’s summit communicated to the public that although G7 member states recognize the importance of addressing climate change on a global level, they aren’t willing to make specific strides towards that goal. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson opened the summit with a promise to "drive a global Green Industrial Revolution to transform the way we live". The countries collectively pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030, gradually stop the use of unabated coal, and end most fossil fuel subsidies and other forms of government support for the fossil fuel industry. However, a consensus could not be reached for exactly when unabated coal would be fully phased out. Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, described the shortcoming as “very disappointing”, saying that the world leaders “left a massive void.”
China: First and foremost, why is China not participating in the G7 Summit? After all, it is one of the world’s largest economies and is the country with the highest population. According to the BBC, China is not considered an advanced economy by the IMF because of its relatively low wealth per person, hence its exclusion from the G7. The reality is that much of the G7’s work could be expedited by cooperating with China, and some of its goals (especially those related to climate change) are logistically unfeasible without China’s participation. However, that is not what the discussion about China was centered around at the summit. Rather, the world leaders discussed how to weaken China’s rapidly growing economic and security influence. The member states pledged to offer other countries billions of dollars so they could become independent of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure project that aims to create a system of railways, highways, and pipelines throughout Asia. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also used the summit to vocalize the United States’ active opposition to the ongoing genocide of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
What Can You Do to Help
The summit tackled a lot of issues, more than could be discussed in a single article alone, so if you want to be involved the first thing you need to do is educate yourself on the issues. Maybe not all the issues (that is a very arduous task), but certainly on the issues you feel passionate about and want to discuss further. Because the issues the summit deals with are multinational, as an individual you cannot do much besides call your elected officials and ask them to vocalize their support or opposition to a given policy on your behalf. You can, however, join organizations that lobby for legislation addressing specific concerns; collective action is the best way to ensure your voice is heard. For climate change alone, there are so many organizations you can donate to and volunteer with. This article has a list of 36 organizations you may want to consider looking at if you are passionate about climate advocacy.
Links to transcripts of select speeches from world leaders (including Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, and Justin Trudeau) at the summit can be found here. For an exhaustive recap of the summit, refer to this CNN page which was updated live throughout the course of the summit. And finally, the communique released following the Leaders’ summit can be found here,.
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