Canada's environment minister Julie Dabrusin told AFP Friday that G7 nations made progress for nature at a meeting in Paris, even as climate change was absent to keep the United States on board.The threat of global warming was kept off the formal agenda at the G7 environment ministers dialogue to avoid a clash with the United States, the Group of Seven's largest and most powerful member.
France, which hosted the meeting, defended the decision as necessary to keep the peace among G7 nations and reach agreement on a number of other initiatives.
Dabrusin said the nature and climate "went hand in hand" and ministers canvassed both themes over two days of discussions behind closed doors in the French capital.
"Protecting nature is part of how we fight climate change," Canada's minister for environment, climate change and nature told AFP on the sidelines of the meeting.
"And also, climate change has an impact on nature. So the conversation is deeply intertwined. And I think that they were important conversations for us to have."
In his second term as president, Donald Trump -- a sceptic of climate change -- has pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement and the bedrock treaty underpinning global climate action.
Activists had criticised the decision to appease the United States but France said putting climate change on the formal agenda would have undermined G7 unity.
"If I had tackled the issue head-on, there would have been no G7," France's Ecology Minister Monique Barbut told reporters on on Thursday.
She said the G7 -- Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Canada and the United States -- had taken concrete steps for the protection of nature and boosting funding for biodiversity.
