Could there be good news out of Kananaskis?
The 51st summit of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries is taking place in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada on 15-17 June 2025. Despite the constantly diminishing part of the world’s population and GDP that these countries represent (reportedly 10% and 44% respectively), one cannot underestimate the importance of having in one place the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, plus the EU Commission and Council Presidents.
This is especially the case at this historical juncture, with the world precariously balancing on a tightrope: a direct war between Israel and Iran just added to the many open fronts in the Middle East, the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the broader war between the two, attacks on civilians and desperate humanitarian emergencies in Gaza and Sudan, trade wars between the US and the rest of the world, deepening indebtedness of countries developing and developed, relentless technological advances upending life and livelihood planning even for developed country citizens, mounting climate change impacts, increasing internal instability even in developed countries, including the US, and more.
The above is the agenda of the world and by extension of the global political/governance forum that, in spite of its problems, is still the UN. The G7 agenda appears less focused on addressing specific geopolitical and geoeconomic situations, dealing with broader thematic areas instead, as per the Canadian G7 Presidency’s priorities:
- Protecting our communities and the world, with sub-themes such as promoting international peace and security, countering foreign interference, fighting transnational crime, addressing migration and dealing with wildfires;
- Building energy security and accelerating the digital transition, with the sub-themes of fortifying critical mineral supply chains, driving broad AI adoption, and unlocking the economic potential of quantum technology;
- Securing the partnerships of the future, with sub-themes attracting private investment for infrastructure building, creating higher-paying jobs for G7 citizens, and ensuring dynamic global markets.
The G7 is the closest that exists to the collective leadership of the West – apologies to Japan but it has been coopted – which in its more extensive form is represented by NATO and the OECD, a bit over 30 countries out of a total of 193 member states of the United Nations. Compare with the 10-member BRICS+, representing about 49% of the world’s population and 28% of global GDP, which in a way claims to speak for “the rest” of the world, beyond the West. The big players of both groups meet at the G20, bringing together the largest individual economies and the two major continental blocs, i.e. the AU and the EU. The interconnection of G7, BRICS+ and G20 with each other and with the G193 that is the UN is not clear, allowing for mission creep – all three bodies are getting increasingly politicized, even if they started from an economic rationale – overlaps and contradictions. The current weakness of the UN, where all this should come together, does not help iron out differences and align agendas towards common ends. What is most important, there is no transparency and accountability for commitments undertaken and results that should be but are not achieved in response to major challenges that the world faces, as indicated earlier.
Back to the spectacular Canadian Rockies and this year’s G7 summit that is ongoing. What solutions can the leaders of the West come up with to shared global problems, what new ground could they break and what major decisions could they adopt vis-à-vis the issues and within the resources in their purview? An incurable optimist would want to see drastic new approaches coming out of Kananaskis, for example:
–Protecting our communities and the world, could include decisions recommitting the G7 to the purposes and processes of the UN Charter, the 80th anniversary of which is coming up; ending the Western double standards in the approach to Russia and Israel in their respective breaches of international law, particularly restraining the Western-enabled Israeli government’s genocidal and widely incendiary streak; reconfirming and bankrolling the central role of the United Nations in providing assistance to the persecuted and starving Palestinians in Gaza, and securing safe humanitarian access in Sudan; ending Western interference in third countries while legitimately countering interference targeting the West; freezing the military spending spiral, calling opponents to do the same, and committing saved resources to addressing climate change and securing SDG implementation worldwide; addressing the root causes of migration in the partly intentional underdevelopment and environmental degradation of the South, and treating undocumented migrants in an orderly and humane fashion in the meantime.
–Building energy security and accelerating the digital transition, could include decisions binding G7 companies operating in countries where critical minerals are extracted to add significant value locally, creating jobs and strengthening the local economies while respecting human rights and environmental standards; sharing the benefits of AI broadly, while firmly restricting its use for military purposes; and making sure that the benefits from the deployment of quantum technology and other new scientific and technological advances are broadly shared for the common good.
–Securing the partnerships of the future, could include decisions that reshape the global financial sector, both the International Financial Institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, as well as public and private financial entities at various levels, putting the sector in the service of shared human well-being and not the other way round; propose sectoral and global strategies that ensure decent and decently-paid work for people around the world, with just transitions for specializations / sectors that become obsolete with the arrival of new technologies; and regulating global markets to ensure that they do not work for their own sake but are part of the effort to achieve the SDGs for all worldwide.
Well, if the pattern of the previous Canadian G7 Presidency, during Mr. Trump’s first presidential term, is anything to go by, there will be no final communiqué with actual decisions from the Kananaskis summit. Even if just included in the Presidency’s summary or press release, though, any move in the aforementioned (over-)optimistic direction would do a lot to mend fences between the West and “the rest”, and could signal a new beginning in multilateral cooperation and responsible statesmanship.
To temper expectations, in case they have been actually heightened, there is also at least one pessimistic and worrisome scenario that may play out at this year’s G7 summit: The G7 may try to assert Western superiority as the guardian of the self-professed “rules-based international order”, which is not exactly what the UN Charter and international law foresee. They may decide to strengthen their cooperation, institutionalize it through a small membership expansion and a permanent secretariat, and try to “play it Netanyahu”, bombing literally and/or financially the whole world into submission. This is the kind of nightmarish scenario that is supportively put forward in an 11 June 2025 Foreign Affairs article by Victor Cha, John Hamre and G. John Ikenberry. Hopefully, at least some of the G7 leaders will prove to be less gung-ho than the ideological professors, and will also be offered cautionary advice by some important “middle powers” that the Canadian G7 Presidency has invited to the summit, including Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa. The fact that Messrs. Cha, Hamre and Ikenberry specifically dismiss a potential role for such powers in stabilizing the global governance system shows that there is serious potential there.
Let’s see how we all wake up once the G7 summit is over. Hopefully the feel will be closer to the optimistic rather than the nightmarish scenario.
Dr Georgios Kostakos is Co-founder and Executive Director of the Brussels-based Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS). He has been a UN staff member, including with the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General, the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and field missions for political affairs and human rights. He has also worked with think tanks, academic institutions and as a consultant on global governance and sustainability, peace and resilience.
