France leaves climate change off G7 environment summit agenda to placate US

France’s Minister for Ecology Monique Barbut, host of the G7 environment minister meeting in Paris, which will address oceans, biodiversity and desertification, but not climate change, in order to avoid a row with the United States. © Géraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI

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environment ministers in Paris have excluded climate change from their agenda to placate the United States, which has withdrawn from global climate agreements.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.