As the Group of Seven members concluded talks in Bicarritz, France, last weekend, the top concern should have been runaway climate change. CO2 emissions, the main source of man-made global warming, continues to rise in the top three emitters — China, the United States and India — while they fell in Japan, which is ranked 5th.
Under President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil is seeing unprecedented deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, which plays a vital role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere among other things. Unless global leaders can engineer a reversal of climate change, little else will matter, especially for island countries like Japan with long coastlines and fragile environments.
Most immediately, following the G7's (pitifully small) pledge of $22 million for emergency aid for the Amazon, the global community should press for a change of course on the environment in Brazil.