The 51st edition of the G7 summit returns, for the second time, to the mountain resort of Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. Coincidentally, it marks the first G7 appearance for four new world leaders: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also been invited for a record sixth time—arguably the most frequent outreach guest at the G7.

Yet this is no ordinary summit. It takes place amid multiple ongoing wars—including direct assaults on nuclear reactors and the potential escalation of conflicts in the Middle East. Even more unsettling is the context of climate failure: 2024 was the year the world officially crossed the red line of the Paris Climate Agreement, with global average temperatures surpassing 1.5°C—signaling a planetary emergency. The G7, representing 40% of the world’s GDP and 25% of its emissions, stands guilty of collective failure.

Adding to this irony is the venue itself: Alberta—Canada’s oil heartland and wildfire hotspot. Just two weeks ago, uncontrolled forest fires scorched 1,600 hectares in northern Alberta, forcing oil and gas operators to evacuate staff and halt production. A stark, symbolic warning from nature: "If humans won’t stop fossil fuel production, nature will force them to."

The Declaration That Will Never Be

When the summit closes on June 17, 2025, the official communiqué will, as always, brim with words like "resolve," "ambition," and "shared future"—but lacking the urgent action and political will needed to prevent the wars, including the climate war, that threaten to ignite a third world war.

The only G7 document that would matter—the one that admits responsibility, surrenders privilege, and commands an end to fossil fuel dependency—will never be written. But if it were, here is what it would say:

The Kananaskis Declaration (Unwritten and Unlikely)

"We, the Heads of State and Government of the Group of Seven, gather amidst the stunning, yet increasingly vulnerable landscapes of the Canadian Rockies—a wilderness profoundly threatened by the very crisis we have fueled. Convening literally in the shadow of Alberta's vast tar sands—the world's most carbon-intensive oil project—we confront the grotesque contradiction of our position.

1. Admission of Systemic Failure and Hypocrisy
We are fossil fuel addicts, funding the fire. Despite a decade of pledges, our collective emissions remain higher in 2025 than in 2015. Canada, our host, champions climate targets while expanding oil and gas production—including the Trans Mountain pipeline.

We confess that between 2015 and 2023, G7 nations provided at least $1.4 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels—far outweighing our climate finance pledges. Our climate finance promise of $100 billion per year was met late, repurposed from other aid, and grossly insufficient—a neocolonial injustice against the Global South.

Our self-proclaimed ‘climate leadership’ has served only to greenwash continued fossil fuel expansion. We are not leaders—we are the planet’s primary saboteurs.

2. Binding Commitments We Will Not Make

• End all fossil fuel subsidies: We should mandate the immediate end of all fossil fuel subsidies, tax breaks, and public finance by January 1, 2026.

• Legally binding fossil fuel phase-out: We should legislate a complete coal power shutdown by 2030 and a 20% annual reduction in oil and gas production to reach zero new extraction licenses immediately and full phase-out by 2035.

• Ban new fossil fuel infrastructure: All permits and financing for pipelines, LNG terminals, and coal infrastructure must cease, redirecting resources to renewables and just transition programs.

3. Paying the Climate Debt (Justice, Not Charity)

• Loss and Damage Reparations: Starting in 2026, $500 billion annually in grant-based funding for climate-vulnerable nations.

• Mitigation and Adaptation Finance: $750 billion annually in new climate finance for developing nations—beyond the overdue $100 billion commitment.

• Debt Cancellation and IFI Reform: Cancel sovereign debt for climate-vulnerable nations and relinquish G7 dominance in the IMF and World Bank, ensuring these institutions serve climate justice over profit.

We recognize these actions threaten the foundation of our privileged, high-consumption lifestyles. But justice—intergenerational and international—is not negotiable. This declaration represents not leadership, but a long-overdue surrender to reality. The age of greenwashing, political excuses, and loopholes must end here."

The Real Declaration: Silence

But this declaration will never be signed. The actual G7 communiqué will likely promise "managed decline" disguised as "leadership"—words drafted in servitude to the oil beneath Alberta’s soil, not in the spirit of its majestic mountains.

The only declaration that could offer hope—the one the G7 will never write—is left unwritten.

(The writer is a former Director UNEP, Founder Director Green TERRE Foundation and an IIT alumnus. Views are personal. He can be reached at shende.rajendra@gmail.com )