Free trade, climate change still hugely important at G7: CIGI

By cceolin

A local expert in international affairs isn’t surprised the issue of terrorism and radicalization has been pushed to the top of the agenda at the G7 summit.

G7 leaders meeting in Italy Friday agreed to new measures to combat terrorism, but Kevin Carmichael with Waterloo’s Centre for International Governance Innovation says a consensus on climate change and free trade must also be top priorities this weekend.

He says the threat of violent extremism is playing a bigger role in G7 talks, in the wake of Monday’s terror attack at Manchester Arena. “Terrorism was always going to be on the agenda, as it tends to be when this group of countries gets together,” he says, “but it’s catapulted to the top of the agenda.”

Carmichael says he would like to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the other leaders champion free trade and climate change, though he doesn’t think President Trump will feel pressured to yield on these issues.

“I would love to see personally this weekend the other leaders do a little better job of showing that there’s still support out there for the climate change agenda, for multilateral trade,” he says. “We’ve seen that slip a bit post Trump.”

Carmichael points out countries like the U.S. and those in Europe have been frustrated with the progress at G20, and see G7 as an opportunity to push issues forward will fewer people around the table. So can the G7 summit really influence change?

“It’s more rhetoric unfortunately,” says Carmichael. “These countries could choose to do something if they wanted to. But they tend not too, as they certainly haven’t tended to do much in recent years.”

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