G7 environment ministers in Paris have excluded climate change from their agenda to placate the United States, which has withdrawn from global climate agreements.
"We chose not to address the climate issue head-on, because the United States' positions on this subject are well known," France's ecology minister Monique Barbut, said.
Under President Donald Trump, the US, the largest and most powerful member of the Group of Seven industrialised economies, withdrawn from global agreements and rolled back environmental protections.
"We wanted to prioritise G7 unity, particularly to protect this forum," Barbut added, saying her ministry would instead focus on "less contentious issues".
Trump's exit from climate bodies an act of 'profound cowardice'
Barbut is joined in Paris by the environment ministers of Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The US is represented by Usha-Maria Turner, assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs at the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Representatives of Mongolia and Armenia, hosts of upcoming COPs on desertification and biodiversity will also attend.
Oceans, deserts, not climate
Barbut's office said the meeting will focus on ocean conservation, biodiversity funding, and the transformation of dry areas into desert.
The meeting takes less than a week before more than 50 countries are to meet in Santa Marta, Colombia, for the first-ever global conference dedicated to phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.
France is hoping to win US and other countries’ backing for the new Nature and People Finance Alliance, an initiative it is spearheading to to raise public and private finance for the protection of biodiversity.
Barbut's ministry would like to use the occasion to announce $800 million (€684 million) in funding for protecting national parks in some 20 African countries.
Protected areas offer hope for Africa's vanishing forests and wildlife
The G7 meeting also hopes to reach a political declaration on desertification and security, while sessions on oceans will look to strengthen an alliance on marine protected areas.
Water pollution will be addressed in one session, while the ministers will visit the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris as part of a session dedicated to forests.
(with AFP)
