G7 grapples with packed agenda of world turned upside down
A price cap on Russian oil, deferral of climate change commitments, a potential famine in Africa and the further supply of weapons to Ukraine are to crowd into a meeting of G7 world leaders over the next three days held against the backdrop of the biggest geopolitical crisis since 1945.
The agenda reveals how the world has been turned upside down since leaders of the industrialised nations last met in Cornwall a year ago in a summit chaired by Britain, largely to focus on the threat posed by China.
Before the summit in Germany, Boris Johnson issued a warning for the west not to show war fatigue, a point that will be echoed when the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addresses the meeting by video link. He is expected to emphasise the difficulties his troops are facing in eastern Ukraine as well as the need for heavier long-range weapons.
The overall message from the three-day G7 meeting will be that sanctions are slowly working in degrading the Russian war machine, and will be stepped up if damage to the wider world economy can be contained.
A ban on new imports of Russian gold will be one new measure of solidarity with Ukraine, but the idea of a cap on Russian oil prices, backed by the US president, Joe Biden, has forced its way into the discussions as a visible means of slowing rampant inflation, one of the chief topics of conversation when the G7 leaders gathered for their first session over three days in the Bavarian Alps.
Such a price mechanism would set an upper limit on imports of oil from Russia, which would be imposed unilaterally by each participating country and prevent Russia selling at a higher price. For European nations, it is also seen as a way potentially to dampen rampant inflation driven by energy
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