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Analytical Studies > Analysis on the 2022 Elmau Summit
G7 Summits > 2022 Elmau Summit

Prospects for a Strong Performance at the 2022 G7 Elmau Summit

John Kirton, G7 Research Group
June 24, 2022 (original version published June 22, 2022)

I am grateful for the contribution of Brittaney Warren and other members of the G7 Research Group.

Introduction

Significance

The 48th annual G7 summit, taking place in Elmau, Germany, on June 26–26, 2022, is a truly historic event. It will confront three, unprecedentedly severe, simultaneous crises: Russia's war against Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022; climate change reaching critical thresholds; and COVID-19 soaring in China and beyond. It will also face the many other urgent challenges of biodiversity loss, rising energy and food prices and insecurity, soaring inflation, economic and trade slowdowns, proliferating poverty, famine, migration, gender inequality, and regional instability and threats to democracy around the world.

Elmau will build on the successful G7 Cornwall Summit and G20 Rome Summit in 2021, the advances at the United Nations Glasgow climate summit in November 2021 and conference on biodiversity in Kunming, China, in April 2022. Elmau will set the stage for the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Madrid on June 28, the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on November 15–16, the UN biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada, on December 5–17 and the U.S.-hosted Summit for Democracy in the autumn of 2022.

The Elmau Summit is chaired by Germany's new chancellor Olaf Scholz, leading a three-party coalition of his Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats. He is joined by Canada's Justin Trudeau and France's recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron at their seventh annual G7 summit, Britain's Boris Johnson at his fourth, Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission and Charles Michel of the European Council at their third, Joe Biden of the United States and Mario Draghi of Italy at their second, and Japan's Fumio Kishida at his first. These G7 leaders will welcome as guests Indonesia's Joko Widodo as 2022 G20 chair, 2023 G20 chair India's Narendra Modi, South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, Senegal's Macky Sall and Argentina's Alberto Fernàndez, as well as United Nations secretary general António Guterres and the heads of other major multilateral organizations.

The Debate

In the lead-up to the Elmau Summit, the prospects for and propellors of its performance have inspired several different schools of thought.

The first school sees Elmau facing unique challenges to its performance, dominated by four pillars needed to maintain a functioning global commons. Dennis Snower (2022) identified the "four C's" of climate, COVID-19, connectivity and commerce as the central obstacles for the G7 to overcome at Elmau, in order to preserve a rules-based global order predicated on respect for human rights, and potentially relying on voluntary alliances to achieve this end.
 
The second school sees an opportunity for transformation not fully taken, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Germany's siloed approach to its initial five presidency priorities. Andreas Freytag (2022) argued that the invasion gave Germany and the G7 presidency a "unique opportunity" to address these inherently interlinked issues in a long-term, comprehensive, strategic framework, using all instruments such as a "complete stop of trade with Russia," secondary sanctions against sanctions violators, removing trade barriers, reducing subsidies, and strengthening "global governance with respect to trade, international finance, and climate protection." It should do so "in cooperation with likeminded governments while including as many developing countries as possible."

The third school sees G7 potential due to Germany's presidency. Adolf Kloke-Lesch (2021) argued that Germany's priorities could mark a turning point for the G7 to "live up to its responsibility for the global common good or … turn into an instrument of geopolitical self-assertion." He recommended that "the German G7 Presidency should coordinate closely with France, Italy and the EU to place the focus on assuming responsibility for the global common good and strengthening cooperation within the UN and G20 frameworks" due to Germany's positive experience of constructively linking the two processes as G7 host in 2015 and G20 host in 2017. Susan Dröge and Marian Feist (2022) see the German host's top Elmau priority of creating a climate club as one that "can certainly provide an impetus for this through agreements on joint regulatory approaches and climate action projects" but must avoid "being perceived as a rich countries' club" and be shaped "as an ambitious but inclusive initiative," while G7 Elmau must also send strong signals on "increasing climate finance commitments."

The fourth school sees possible G7 prominence, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting G20 divisions and deadlocks. Mark Sobel (2022) thought that "Russia's heinous invasion of Ukraine will complicate and fragment global governance structure – and not for the better. While the G7's role may take on added weight, the G20 will be crippled and the world's ability to tackle global challenges undermined … With Xi [Jinping] and [Vladimir] Putin's 'no limits' friendship, the G7 is gaining greater traction as an anti-authoritarian democracy club … the G20 will be riven this year. Eyes in the West will instead focus on Germany's G7 presidency."

The fifth school sees G7 success, due to Biden's American leadership against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Heidi Crebo-Rediker and Douglas Rediker (2022) wrote: "nothing better illustrates the success of Biden's work with its U.S. allies than what happened before and directly after Russia's invasion. In the lead-up to the war, the Biden team worked with its G-7 and additional European partners to prepare a coordinated menu of escalating coercive economic measures, both to deter an invasion and to prepare a concerted response for if a war took place. The United States also ramped up its energy security co-operation … As a result, immediately after the invasion began, the United States and its allies were able to pull off an unprecedented degree of international coordination, rapidly imposing historically severe economic sanctions and export controls on a major economy."

The sixth school sees Elmau as a strong security success. Jens Stoltenberg (2022) argued that "the G7 has been essential to ensuring a united response to the war in Ukraine" and "will continue to shape the future global security landscape" at Elmau.

The seventh school sees the Elmau Summit strengthening security and ecological sustainability together, due to the shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. John Kirton and Brittaney Warren (2022) pointed to the strong momentum on climate change from the 2021 Cornwall Summit, the very high compliance with Cornwall's priority commitments, the quality of the German presidency's summit plan, the G7 emergency summit on February 24 that acted equally on the environment and security, and the commitments of the G7 leaders' statement on March 10.

The eighth school more broadly sees G20-G7 synergies, due to desire of the Indonesian G20 and German G7 hosts to cooperate amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine and their two summits' common priorities of health, digitalization and energy (Hermawan 2022; Kloke-Lesch 2021).

Puzzles

Despite their many insights, these schools neglect how G7 performance depends in part on its proven ability to spur and shape the performance of the subsequent G20 summit, rather than substitute for it in providing needed global governance. Furthermore, these schools all assess Elmau's performance against the backdrop of the security crisis in Ukraine, rather than the full range of the policy issues the G7 governs. Nor do these schools consider the performance and causal spur of the G7 ministerial meeting outcomes in the lead-up to the Elmau Summit or the G7 leaders' compliance with their promises in the aftermath of their last annual summit in Cornwall in 2021, their many special ones since and their forthcoming Elmau one. More specifically, the schools do not apply evidence-based analysis that shows positive or negative correlations between summit outcomes on paper (such as communiqué references to international climate law) or process (such as holding pre-summit ministerial meetings) and compliance. This article adds these missing components to the analyses.

The Argument

At their Elmau Summit, G7 leaders will produce a strong performance, relative to the G7 summit's past performance, as measured by the dimensions of performance identified in the concert equality of G7 governance (Kirton 2013; Kirton, Kokotsis and Warren 2022) (see Appendix A). Performance will be led by ambitious advances on the conflict in Ukraine, climate change and COVID-19, even if large gaps will remain to meet the growing global and global governance need.

On the war in Ukraine, G7 leaders will promise Ukraine their full support for as long as it takes to win the war and regain all its territory that Russia has seized by force. They will commit to provide Ukraine with more of the weapons it needs to resist and reverse Russia's invasion, to protect Ukrainians against any Russian use of weapons of mass destruction, and to quickly end G7 members' imports of the Russian coal, oil and natural gas that finances Russia's war. They will further provide Ukraine with economic and financial support, humanitarian and refugee relief, and promise to help begin rebuilding Ukraine in clean, green, digital ways.

On climate change, the world's only existential threat, G7 leaders will launch new climate clubs, of the different countries most able and willing to act on particular critical tasks. On climate finance, they will reinforce efforts to deliver the long-promised $100 billion a year or more to developing countries, raise new climate funding through public and private sources, set standards for assessing and disclosing climate risk and issuing genuinely green, sustainable bonds, strengthen carbon pricing, and analytically develop carbon border adjustment mechanisms to level the playing field. G7 leaders will promote nature-based solutions for carbon sinks as well as sources, by globally growing over one trillion trees, preserving peatlands, and protecting at least 30% of land and sea in their natural state by 2030. Overall, the G7 will advance the three core pillars of the Paris Agreement: mitigation, adaptation and climate finance.

On energy, G7 leaders will act to finally phase out fossil fuel subsidies quite soon and quickly kill killer coal use, production and financing at home and beyond, doing both after the temporary reversal just arising in response to Russia's sudden, severe reduction of its natural gas exports to Europe. They will approve stronger standards for energy efficiency in buildings, transportation and industry, and spark the transition to electric vehicles. They will expand solar and wind power, and add the reliable renewables of tidal, wave and geothermal power. They will reinforce energy security and affordability by expanding electricity grids and connectivity, sources and types of supply and by reducing excessive demand.

On health, leaders will expand the manufacture, equitable distribution, accessibility, acceptance and use of safe, effective vaccines and therapeutics to control COVID-19. They will address the growing burden of "long COVID," mental illness, cancer, heart and stroke, diabetes, respiratory disease, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, antimicrobial resistance, the zoonotic diseases that flow from animals to humans, and more. They will try to better predict, prevent and cure diseases, through universal health coverage, primary health care, a cleaner climate and digital health. They will commit to create a more powerful and better resourced World Health Organization (WHO), with 50% of members' financial contributions going to its core budget and to finance a new pandemic preparedness financing facility managed by the World Bank and WHO.

On the economy, they will offer clearer, tighter monetary policy to control rapidly rising inflation, and consolidated fiscal policy in support, with both carefully calibrated to sustain and spur sustainable economic growth. They will credibly promise to intervene swiftly and effectively to halt any contagious financial crises erupting within G7 and other systemically significant states. They will support selective trade liberalization, by endorsing the small advances finally made at the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) earlier in June. They will also offer more debt relief for very poor countries, largely through multilateral institutions.

On infrastructure, they will agree to launch a new Global Project for Infrastructure based on a U.S. initiative that Biden will bring to Elmau, building on a similar U.S. initiative and G7 agreement at the G7 Cornwall Summit last year (Tanaka 2022).

On their broader political-security agenda, they will promise strengthened sanctions against nuclear proliferation in North Korea, and against Iran if need be, and to counter China's expansion and authoritarianism everywhere.

This strong performance will be propelled by several powerful forces:

• the unprecedentedly severe, simultaneous, mutually reinforcing shock-activated vulnerabilities (SAVs) from Russia's continuing invasion of Ukraine, climate change, COVID-19 and their consequences,
• the failure of the established ministerially governed multilateral organizations to offer an adequate response on their own,
• the growing global predominance and internal equality of G7 members' critical capabilities required to fill the gap, their renewed common principles of open democracy and human rights, the substantial domestic political cohesion behind Elmau's leaders, and
• their great trust in their growing, personal G7 club at the hub of an expanding network of global summit governance.

Plans and Preparations

To produce this strong performance, Germany started planning and preparing a little later for the summit than usual, as the formation of its new coalition government was finalized only in December 2021. Its sherpa team worked over the holidays to enable it by January 2022 to finalize the preparations and priorities. They reflected a large consensus within the German government, evident in the many G7 ministerial events the presidency scheduled before the summit. There was much enthusiasm and very active engagement within the German ministries involved in the G7 process. All ministers explained and defined their proposals for outreach to civil society.

The final cabinet discussion before the public launch was extremely intensive. In this very long debate, of several hours, all ministers explained their G7 individual strategies. Scholz encouraged them to do more, to continue this process, and to do so as broadly as possible. The involvement of citizens and civil society was also emphasized in the subsequent press conference. Scholz, environment minister Robert Habeck and finance minister Christian Lindner outlined their plans very thoroughly. The debate with civil society would be an integral part of the G7 process that would continue into the Elmau Summit and during the second half of Germany's full year as host in 2022.

The idea of multilateral cooperation went through Germany's priorities fully, as a core feature. Social cohesion in facing the challenges all G7 members confronted was key. Germany's priorities were very much aligned with the UN's 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both the thematic issues related to climate change, health, the economy and all the sources of crisis and tension in the world called for a strong and united G7. Germany also wished to highlight consistency, knowing that its G7 presidency followed what it saw as an extremely successful one hosted by the United Kingdom in 2021.

The Davos Agenda, January 19

Germany's priorities for the Elmau Summit were first publicly unveiled by Olaf Scholz (2022b) in his video address to the World Economic Forum's Davos Dialogue on January 19. Climate change was presented second, but took centre stage alongside health, which came first.

With COVID-19's omicron wave surging, Scholz began his speech with this, quickly moved to conflict with Russia over Ukraine and then returned to COVID-19 and global health. He stated: "as part of our current G7 Presidency, we will focus on improving the international health infrastructure, including in countries of the Global South … we need partners to join hands, particularly in the private sector … let us work together to fully fund the global vaccination campaign. That would also be the booster shot our economies need."

Climate change came next. Scholz declared:

We will use our Presidency of the G7 to turn that group into the nucleus of an International Climate Club. What we want to achieve is a paradigm shift in international climate policy: we will no longer wait for the slowest and least ambitious.

Instead, we will lead by example. And we will turn climate action from a cost factor into a competitive advantage – by agreeing on joint minimum standards.

Ambitious, bold and cooperative – that will be the Climate Club's ABC.

•   Ambitious by committing its members to the 1.5 degree target and to climate neutrality by 2050, at the latest.
•   Bold by ensuring that we act now to reach those goals, for instance by pricing carbon and preventing carbon leakage.
• And cooperative, by remaining open to all countries and by respecting WTO rules.

We are not looking to be an exclusive club. By addressing technology transfer and climate financing, we hope to bring developing and emerging economies on board…

Within the Climate Club, we want to work on a common understanding of what green hydrogen is. And we will coordinate our respective investments. That is the way towards a reliable global supply (Scholz 2022b).

Referring to Germany specifically, he added:

By 2030, 80 percent of our energy will come from renewables – twice as much as today. This requires massive investment in our infrastructure – from electricity grids to hydrogen pipelines.

•   We will speed up planning processes and stimulate private investment in future technologies and digitalisation.
•   And we will modernise our immigration laws to attract the skilled workers, scientists and technicians that our labour market needs (Scholz 2022b).

Noting the "the ecological crisis," he continued:

What we need is better progress. Progress that isn't measured just in its short-term results, but also factors in its long-term consequences and side effects.

Progress that addresses the concerns of all of our citizens …

The sheer magnitude and simultaneity of globalisation, digitalisation, and climate adaptation leaves many citizens worrying:

•   Will their well-paid jobs move away?
•   Will energy prices or rents in big cities continue to soar? Will pensions remain secure and health systems reliable? (Scholz 2022b)

The Official Agenda, January 21

Germany's official agenda was mounted on its website on January 21, in an extensive 12-page document entitled "G7 Germany 2022: Policy Priorities for Germany's G7 Presidency in 2022." It began with five priorities, as follows:

• A sustainable planet: pioneering strong alliances for progress on climate protection, especially through the establishment of an open and cooperative international climate club, on the protection of the environment and biodiversity and on accelerating the global energy transition.
• Economic stability and transformation: setting the course for economic recovery, financial stability and for a sustainable, social and just global economic system.
• Healthy lives: strengthening global health with pandemic preparedness and response and an improved international health architecture.
• Investment in a better future: promoting sustainable development and infrastructure, expanding partnerships on the climate, energy and development, as well as a commitment to peace and security.
• Stronger together: committing to open, resilient and gender-equitable societies and human rights, defending liberal democracies, social participation, freedom of science and of the press, tackling disinformation, promoting the digital order and digital progress (German G7 Presidency 2022).

In the detailed outline of these priorities, the first one on "A Sustainable Planet" had two components. The first, "Establishing a global alliance for climate protection," highlighted, in bold, five goals:

1. achieve the 1.5 degree target … to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by advancing their regulation, including through pricing and by investing in sustainable climate and energy concepts;
2. forward the energy transition by accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power, promoting the decarbonisation of sectors – especially industry, transport and construction – with the help of innovation, regulation and financial incentives, and strengthening international climate financing;
3. promote the contributions to climate protection made by agriculture, the healthcare sector and the digital transformation as well as by urban development to … make our societies and economies … more resilient and adaptable;
4. drive forward and collectively pioneer as the G7 the discussion on a cooperative global climate club that is open to all countries, expanding international partnerships above and beyond the G7, especially with G20 partners;
5. further progress in research on tackling climate change and more closely dovetail climate aspects with the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals and, with a networked approach in mind, also with our security policy approach in order to tackle climate change as a driver of poverty, hunger, gender inequality, conflict and displacement around the world (German G7 Presidency 2022).

The second component, "Protecting the Environment," also highlighted five goals, as follows:

1. the preservation of biodiversity … to strengthen natural climate protection;
2. to achieve a high level of ambition, sustainable financing, regulatory approaches and swift implementation in the field of biodiversity protection, linking up with the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity;
3. to improve sustainable chemicals management and thus reduce global pollution by chemicals with all due resolve;
4. to drive forward the protection and sustainable use of the seas … to improve the protection of marine biodiversity in the high seas, the Southern Ocean and the deep sea and … counter the pollution of the seas;
5. to achieve progress in the field of sustainable agriculture and international water governance and to drive forward the fight against illegal financial flows in connection with environmental crimes (German G7 Presidency 2022).

The third priority, on "Healthy lives", had two components.

The first was "Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and preparing for future pandemics." It highlighted in bold "support for all pillars of the ACT Accelerator [Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator] including the vaccination pillar COVAX … local vaccine production in developing countries … [and] tackle antimicrobial resistance" (German G7 Presidency 2022).

The second component, "Improving the global health architecture," emphasized the "global healthcare architecture in the medium and long term … a pandemic exercise … [and] the connection between climate change, biodiversity and global health issues" (German G7 Presidency 2022).

The 12-page document made no reference to Russia, Ukraine or China (beyond the biodiversity conference in Kunming).

The Special Summit Sequence

A strong spur and fast start for G7 summit performance came on February 24, with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. G7 leaders' special summits and statements arose very quickly and frequently and performed very strongly since their February 24 start (see Appendix B). In an unprecedentedly intense sequence of direct summitry, G7 leaders held summits virtually on February 24 and February 28, issued a statement on March 11, met in person in Brussels on March 24, issued a statement on April 7, videoconferenced with the leaders of Poland, Romania and NATO on April 19 and did so with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on May 8. They thus produced an unprecedented seven summits or statements within 10 weeks.

G7 Emergency Summit, February 24

The leaders began with an unusually early emergency summit on February 24 at 15h15 Berlin time, a few hours after Russia invaded Ukraine at 04h00 Berlin time that day (Kirton and Warren 2022). They issued two documents: the G7 Leaders Statement with eight paragraphs, and the G7 Leaders' Statement on the Invasion of Ukraine by Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, with six paragraphs.

This summit produced an unusually high 52 commitments, 48 in the comprehensive statement and four in the statement on Ukraine. The 52 commitments were led by those on health with 13, followed by climate change with eight, peace and security with five, and democracy and infrastructure with four each. Regional security, the environment and macroeconomics had three each, energy and development two each, and trade, international taxation, human rights, gender, and the digital economy one each.

Of the 52 commitments, 39 or 75% were highly politically binding ones, using language that indicates a strong obligation to meet them, while the other 13, for 25%, were low binding ones, with less compelling language. Highly binding commitments dominated at 100% the ones on democracy, regional security, the environment, macroeconomics, trade, international taxation, human rights, gender and the digital economy. Peace and security had 80% highly binding commitments; infrastructure 75%; trade, international taxation, human rights, gender, the digital economy, energy and development 50%; health 69%; and climate change only 38%.

G7 Leaders' Discussion of Ukraine, February 28

Four days later, on February 28, G7 leaders followed up quickly with a discussion focused on Ukraine.

G7 Leaders' Statement, March 11

Eleven days later, on March 11, the G7 Leaders' Statement contained 19 commitments, all on Russia's war against Ukraine. Of these, crime and corruption had seven, human rights and macroeconomics three each, energy and trade two each, democracy one, and food and agriculture also one. Leaders promised that "we will make further efforts to reduce our reliance on Russian energy, while ensuring that we do so in an orderly fashion and in ways that provide time for the world to secure alternative and sustainable supplies" (G7 2022a).

G7 Summit, Brussels, March 24

Two weeks later, on March 24, all G7 leaders came in person to their summit in Brussels. It was the culminating capstone of a day that opened with an EU summit, followed by a NATO one (Warren 2022). This sequence brought Japan into the trans-Atlantic consensus. The three summits, tightly concentrated in a single day in a single city, in a regional-to-global summit sequence, strengthened synergies among the actions of all three institutions.

The capstone G7 summit produced a communiqué of 20 paragraphs with 1,538 words. It complimented Ukraine and its neighbours once each for their "heroic resistance" to Russia's "unjustifiable and illegal aggression" (G7 2022b). It condemned Russia six times. It affirmed the G7's distinctive foundational missions of promoting open democracy once and human rights twice.

G7 leaders made 28 commitments, all on the war in Ukraine, covering six subjects regarding it. Regional security had 12, including investigating Russia's war crimes. The energy and food crises had five each, migration and refugees three, trade two and climate change one. There were thus strong synergies among the conflict in Ukraine and climate change and energy. Only COVID-19 was absent. Communiqué-recognized SAVs arose on energy and food.

To develop global governance, G7 leaders made two references to institutions inside the G7, including one instructing their ministers to monitor their sanctions on Russia. They made 10 references to a broad array of outside institutions, with two to the World Food Programme (WFP) and one each to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), multilateral development banks (MDBs), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and international financial institutions (IFIs). Here the G7 supported UNGA, the ICC, IAEA, WFP, MDBs, WTO and IFIs. It asked for action from or guided OPEC and the FAO, implying that they believed these multilateral organizations, in particular, had failed.

G7 Leaders' Discussion, March 28

Four days later, on March 28, G7 leaders spoke among themselves. They released no communiqué.

G7 Leaders' Statement on Ukraine, April 7

Ten days later, on April 7, they released a G7 Leaders Statement on Ukraine. In it they made 17 commitments, all on the conflict in Ukraine (see Appendix C). Five were on energy, including banning new investment in Russia's energy sector, phasing out Russian coal imports, reducing dependency on Russian oil, and ensuring "sustainable global energy supplies, including by accelerating reduction of our reliance on fossil fuels and our transition to clean energy" (G7 2022c). The synergies between security and sustainability were strong.

G7 Leaders' Videoconference with Poland, Romania and NATO, April 19

G7 leaders met 12 days later, on April 19, with a videoconference with the Polish president Andrzej Duda, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg. This expanded the G7's core summit club to include two consequential front-line states in countering Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, it did so much more broadly and deeply, through the first ever G7-NATO summit of this kind.

G7 Leaders' Videoconference with Ukraine, May 8

Nineteen days later, on May 8 G7 leaders held a videoconference with Zelensky. This was their first summit with the Ukrainian president alone, thus bringing him uniquely to participate in the G7 summit discussions. They made 27 commitments there.

In all, just over three months into Germany's presidency, in five of their seven special summits in just over 10 weeks, G7 leaders made 143 commitments, composed of February 24's 52, March 11's 19, March 24's 28, April 7's 17 and May 8's 27. No previous G7 special summit sequence in the lead-up to the annual scheduled one had done so much so soon.

Momentum from Ministerial Meetings

The leaders' performance was reinforced by the many meetings of their ministers and the many commitments the ministers made there (see Appendix D).

G7 health ministers met first on January 31, for a fast start to Germany's year as host, to focus on the COVID-19 crisis still taking centre stage.

Two weeks later, on February 14, finance ministers met. Their focus shifted, as they issued a statement on Ukraine.

Five days later, on February 19, foreign ministers also issued a statement on Ukraine, 10 days before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

Three days later, on February 22, foreign ministers met and issued a chair's statement on Ukraine.

Five days later, on February 27, three days after Russia's full-scale invasion began, G7 foreign ministers met with their Ukrainian counterpart, and issued a press release.

One day later, on February 28, health ministers met to discuss Ukraine, omicron and G7 preparations. This showed that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has not displaced the initial priority on the COVID-19 crisis, and that the G7 could concentrate on both together and prepare the Elmau Summit to do so, perhaps even in synergistic ways.

In the following months, the pace and breadth of ministerial meetings and statements expanded. From one in January and five in February, they grew to nine in March, the latter led by foreign ministers with three, followed by energy with two, and finance, agriculture, health, and trade with one each.

In April there were two, on April 7 from foreign ministers and on April 20 from finance ministers and central bank governors with a statement on Ukraine.

In May there was a new high of 10 meetings or separate statements. They were led by the foreign ministers, by health and by development with two each (including one held jointly meeting of the health and development ministers), and by digital, by finance and by climate, environment and energy. Peace and security subjects, with Afghanistan and North Korea now added, were more prominent. But synergies were also strengthening, most notably with the foreign ministers on May 13 addressing climate and environment and COVID-19, and the May 27 meeting combining ministers of climate, the environment and energy.

June added a meeting for ministers of science, and, for the first time in G7 history, of media.

In all through to June 21, there was an unprecedentedly high number of 29 ministerial meetings or separate statements, involving ministers from 12 different portfolios. They were led by foreign affairs with 11, followed by health with five, finance with four, energy with three (including one jointly with climate and environment), and development with two (including one jointly with health). Ministers of agriculture, trade, digital, employment, climate and environment, science, and media had one each. Foreign policy thus had a strong lead, followed by health, finance and energy.

Momentum from Members' Compliance

Further momentum for Elmau's strong performance, including for the delivery of its leaders' decisions there, came from G7 members' strong compliance by February 1, 2022, with the 21 priority commitments of the 2021 Cornwall Summit, as assessed in the interim compliance report of the G7 Research Group (Kieffer et al. 2022). It was reinforced by the further compliance advances up to April 10, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began on February 24 (Regimbal and Keiffer 2022). Interim compliance was high, averaging 85%. It was highest with gender and development commitments at 100% each, followed by infrastructure and regional security at 94% each, and energy at 91%. Next came climate change, the digital economy, macroeconomics, health and human rights, each with 88%. Next was trade at 81%, international cooperation at 79% and the environment at 78%. At the bottom were crime and corruption at 63% and democracy at 56%.

The Final Stages

In the final two months before the summit, its agenda focus and deliverables took further shape. Scholz, speaking to the Civil 20 on May 5, noted that the G7 had invited to Elmau representatives of international organisations and several heads of state and government. After starting with Russia's war against Ukraine, he said "the G7 will hold even more intensive discussions about disinformation campaigns and coordinate our responses to them" (Scholz 2022a). He identified the major challenges as the "ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, human-induced climate change, food and energy security and the economic transition."

On international climate policy, he said "we are aiming for a paradigm shift … [to] reduce global CO2 emissions by 48 percent compared with 2010. And that until 2030." He added: "An international climate change policy geared to the lowest common denominator won't get us there. Therefore, instead of waiting for the slowest, we will go ahead with the most ambitious countries. This is the idea behind an open, cooperative Climate Club, which we will push forward at the G7 Summit in Elmau in June. Together with other committed countries, we want to accelerate the decarbonisation of our industrial sector and identify minimum standards for climate change mitigation. This will give rise to an international market with a level playing field, a market that rewards countries for climate-friendly economic management while offering protection against competitive disadvantages."

On global health, he said, "we … want to advance the issue of global vaccine fairness during our G7 Presidency. To that end, the international community launched the ACT Accelerator – an initiative that makes vaccines, medicines and diagnostics available around the world …With a view to future crises, we also need a strong international healthcare infrastructure. That's why we are strengthening the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the prime international health organisation. Just last week, the WHO Working Group on Sustainable Financing agreed on a clear target: to increase assessed contributions to 50 percent of the base segment of the programme budget … In addition, we will drive forward global vaccine production."

Causes

This strong performance will be propelled by several powerful forces: the unprecedentedly severe, simultaneously, self-reinforcing shocks from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, climate change, COVID-19 and their consequences, the failure of the established ministerially governed multilateral organizations adequately respond on their own; the globally predominant, internally equalizing critical capabilities of G7 members required to fill the gap, their renewed common principles of open democracy and human rights, the substantial domestic political cohesion backing Elmau's leaders, and their trust in their personal G7 club at the hub of an expanding network of global summit governance.

Shock-Activated Vulnerability

First, SAV produces a very strong, swift, direct push to high G7 summit performance at Elmau. They are led by three, unprecedentedly severe, simultaneous crises: Russia's war against Ukraine launched on February 24 this year, climate change now reaching critical thresholds and COVID-19 soaring in China and beyond (Financial Times 2022). These three exceptional shocks of climate, COVID-19 and conflict are synergistic, mutually reinforcing, rather than separate, competing diversionary ones, which G7 leaders largely recognize as such.

Physical Shocks

Physical shocks are unprecedentedly high, surprising, severe, simultaneous and interrelated. They are led by those in security, from Russia's invasion of Ukraine; in ecology, from climate change; in health from COVID-19; and in the economy and finance. These core shocks intensify those in the closely related fields of energy, famine and food insecurity, and migration, and compound the burden from more chronic challenges such as biodiversity loss.

On security, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, starting in February, was unprecedented in Europe and the world since the end of World War Two in 1945. It was a great surprise to most G7 members, even if U.S. intelligence had predicted and publicly warned about it in the weeks and days before. It was a full-scale invasion, on three simultaneous fronts, seeking to capture Ukraine's capital, install a puppet regime and absorb Ukraine into Russia – the latter goal beyond that of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. There was little time to respond, to save Ukraine from this fate. Yet this was a second very similar shock, following Russia's invasion and annexation of the Crimean region of Ukraine in 2014. This similarity, and the failure of the G7's response since 2014, propelled G7 leaders to produce a much stronger, swifter and effective collective response from the very start this time. Their individual and collective actions, galvanized and coordinated by several special G7 summits starting on the morning of February 24 itself, help prevent the fall of Kiev, and later Odessa and Kharkiv, if not Mariupol in the south east and force Russia to concentrate its forces to advance in the western Donbass.

As the Elmau Summit approached and Russia's invasion continued beyond 100 days, the initial surprise had worn off, but new ones arose regularly, from Russia's atrocities in Bucha and elsewhere, and its reported forced deportation of over 1.9 million Ukrainians, including 300,000 Ukrainian children, to Russia. The severity of the shock escalated, in the death and wounding of Ukrainian military members and civilians and Russian and through property damage throughout Ukraine. So, too, the vulnerability escalated, first of Ukraine as country, which by June 18 had lost control of about 20% of its territory and was desperately short of the heavy weapons it needed to hold the land it still had. Also rendered more vulnerable were Russia's neighbours, including those in the EU, NATO and the G7, with the United States and Canada a next-door neighbour in the Arctic, and Russian armed forces occupying the northern territories of Japan.

Less surprising and severe security shocks arose from North Korea's missile launches toward Japan in mid June, and the signals from China that it was prepared to acquire Taiwan by force.
 
On the ecology, on climate change, by June 19, there were unprecedented heatwaves, often with accompanying droughts, crop failures, forest fires and flood throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Although they were led by Italy and France, no G7 or major EU member was unscathed. Similarly afflicted were the Elmau guests from India, Australia, and countries in south Asia and the Middle East (notably Iran and the United Arab Emirates).

On health, by early June, COVID-19 had become less surprising and severe in its hospitalizations and deaths, as it moved through its third year within G7 members. But by mid June new variants caused infections and the cumulative death toll to rise, while the associated, persisting toll from "long COVID" grew and became increasingly clear. The B.5 variant was poised to produce another wave by the Elmau Summit's start. And the eruption of an infectious monkeypox virus steadily spreading well beyond it historic African home signalled that new pandemics could arise at any time. It reawakened memories of the deadly Ebola epidemic that had erupted in Africa in 2014.

On the economy, SAVs steadily grew. They were led in the G7 by labour shortages and overall inflation, swiftly soaring to levels not seen since the first post–World War Two shock in 1982. By the third week of June, inflation had reached new highs in the United States, and even in Japan. It was forecast by the Bank of England to reach 11% in the United Kingdom. A related shock came from G7 policymakers in mid June with many of their central banks' surprising, swift, simultaneous spikes in their policy interest rates. Simultaneously, fears arose of a financial crisis in Italy, reminiscent of the first such shock that had fuelled the Euro-crisis from 2010 to 2012. The fear caused the European Central Bank (ECB) to immediately call an emergency meeting, where members decided to design and anti-fragmentation financing facility.

These major SAVs also compounded several other ones, notably in energy, food and migration that would propel G7 leaders' agreement on action at Elmau.

Media-Highlighted Shocks

In the lead-up to the Elmau Summit, in the four days from June 15 to 20, on the front page of the elite global daily Financial Times, stories on the democracy, led by the war in Ukraine, appeared every day, taking 75% on June 15 and 100% on June 16. Stories on the economy appeared on three days, with 50% on both June 15 and June 18. Those on climate change, including energy, also appeared on three days, taking 67% on June 17. Those on health, all on COVID-19, appeared on two days, with 50% on June 18. The four top shocks of the war in Ukraine, the economy, climate and energy, and COVID-19 continued to dominate the news.

Summary

The synergistic top three SAVs will very strongly continue to spur climate-friendly, health-enhancing energy security by having Elmau's leaders continue to quickly reduce G7 and western coal, oil and gas imports from Russia and replace them with renewables, conservation, and efficiency through insulation, heat pumps and nature-based solutions (Financial Times 2022).

Multilateral Organizational Failure

Second, in responding to these many severe, broad, interrelated growing shocks and vulnerabilities, the multilateral organizational failure of the world's most relevant, central, ministerially governed bodies was high. This spurred G7 leaders at Elmau to fill the gap with a strong performance of their own.

On security, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and UNGA, due to Russia and China's veto on the UNSC's Permanent Five, failed to stop Russia's invasion, destruction and atrocities in Ukraine.

On climate change, the UN climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021 had failed to reduce the rebounding rise in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 as economic growth was restored as the COVID-19 pandemic receded in 2021. The next annual meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) to be held in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, in November 2022, was designed as usual as a gathering of members' ministers, rather than leaders, with the unique authority and comprehensive coverage that leaders bring. The first major UN Climate gathering to prepare COP27, held in Bonn over two weeks in mid June, ended in acrimony, with very little progress made (Hodgson and Politi 2022). The United States, European Union and other rich countries refused to give poor countries climate finance for adaptation due to the loss and damage they were suffering from rich countries' emissions in the past, despite the demand by all major countries in the developing country group for this financial support and for a new loss and damage financing facility to deliver it. Members made little advance on their other agenda items of ways to reduce emissions more quickly, adapt to climate change effects and raise climate finance.

On the environment more broadly, the UN Biodiversity Summit in Kunming in April, the UN Environment Assembly in March, and the World Meteorological Organization, the UN Deep Seabed Authority and FAO failed to stop the growing biodiversity loss, plastics pollution in the oceans, air pollution, overfishing, and reduction of agricultural lands, forests and peatlands.

On health, led by COVID-19, the WHO failed to stop the COVID-19 omicron surge in China, Asia, Europe and North America in 2022. Its governing World Health Assembly in May did agree to have 50% of its financing finally go to its core budget, rather than its discretionary, voluntary one. But it remained for G7 leaders to lead the implementation by providing the necessary funds.

On the critical issue of issuing a waiver under the Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement – so that poor countries could produce their own COVID-19 vaccines using the formulae from firms in the United States, United Kingdom and other rich countries – the WTO, which always meets only at the ministerial level, ended its six-day, long-delayed conference on June 17, after the UK finally relented. The WTO's 164 members agreed to the waiver for the next five years, but only if the governments invoking this waiver paid the patent holders (Bounds 2022). This was far less than the full waiver for all COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics sought by India and South Africa, but would be reviewed in six months.
 
On trade, the WTO's ministerial meeting also agreed to limit food export restrictions, especially for sales to the WFP to counter famine, to prolong duty-free trade in digital products only temporarily (due to resistance from India, Indonesia, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and to cut some fishing subsidies (Bounds 2022). Ministers also agreed to strive to reform the WTO's working processes and reinvigorate its paralyzed dispute settlement system. But they delayed decisions on several disputed items, notably agricultural subsidies, until the next WTO ministerial meeting a year and a half later, in December 2023.

Plurilateral summit institutions helped fill the gaps left by this multilateral organizational failure, but not enough to fully substitute amid the escalating demand.

On climate change, at a virtual Major Economies Meeting on energy and climate that the U.S. president called and hosted on June 17, Biden pushed again for targets by 2030 to capture methane emissions from oil and gas production, to increase electric vehicle adoption and the use of "green shipping" (Hodgson and Polti 2022).

On health, the G20 at its finance ministers level agreed to create a pandemic preparedness financing facility at the World Bank, to be managed there with the WHO, and to aim at raising $100 billion for it. But G7 leaders at Elmau were expected to endorse the proposal and make the initial pledges necessary to bring it about.

Predominant Equalizing Capabilities

Third, G7 members' globally predominant and internally equalizing capabilities will produce a substantial push to strong performance at Elmau.

Global Predominance

Overall, in mid April 2022, they and their close democratic partners of Australia and Korea possessed a majority of the world's economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) at current exchange rates (Rachman 2022). Their currencies were rising, as those of the BRICS countries, led by Russia, declined.

Internal Equalization

Internally, however, a constraint came as the U.S. dollar rose, while the euro, Japanese yen and British pound declined, while the Canadian dollar stayed largely the same. The euro slid to an almost two-year low, falling below $1.08, dropping almost 5% against the U.S. dollar in 2022 after a 6.9% fall in 2021 (Steer and Megaw 2022).

By mid May, the U.S. dollar had risen 10% against the DXY basket of major currencies in since the start of 2022, and 16% in 12 months, to the highest level in 20 years (El-Erian 2022). However, after reaching new highs in April, it began to dip after May 15, as the euro rose to US$1.05 and sterling also rose.

In G7 members' underlying GDP growth at current market exchange rates, equalization also appears. In the first quarter of 2022, U.S. GDP declined into a contraction. Japanese GDP declined at an annualised rate of 1%, or 0.2% from the previous quarter, due to COVID-19 restrictions and spiking commodity prices driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Inagaki 2022). UK growth declined too. Continental European growth remained strong for longer, but slid in June. Canadian growth remained strong, on track to lead the G7 in 2022.

Converging Characteristics and Policies

Fourth, the upwardly converging political characteristics and polices among G7 members is high, making it easier for G7 leaders to arrive at more ambitious collective agreements at Elmau. This convergence begins with their overall democracy, as Biden framed U.S. foreign policy as defending democracies against autocracies, and organized summits of the new Quadrilateral and Summit for Democracy in support.

There is also a strong, sustained, completely shared, upward convergence of members' policies on Russia's war against Ukraine, climate change and COVID-19.

On Russia's war against Ukraine, the shock of the invasion on February 24 spurred all G7 members to give Ukraine unprecedented, steadily escalating and previously thought impossible military, financial and other material and diplomatic support, with few firm limits durably imposed. The same was true for G7 members' sanctions against Russia and its ally Belarus. The only disagreement, some of it temporary, was about the degree and speed – not the direction – of the response.

On climate change, some G7 members are increasing their climate control policies, while none are reducing theirs more than temporarily, even if the promises and their implementation remain far too low and slow, and if their temporary increases in fossil fuel subsidies and use of killer coal might last longer and do more harm than they should.

On COVID-19, all G7 members see the value of vaccination, are inoculating their own citizens, and sharing more of the relevant resources with those outside. Most notably, all G7 members, including the previously resisting United Kingdom and publicly uncommitted Canada, agreed to the admittedly temporary, recipient government compensated TRIPS waiver at the WTO's ministerial meeting on June 17.

Domestic Political Cohesion

Fifth, G7 leaders have substantial political backing at home, allowing them to use their G7 summit abroad to adjust to their G7 colleagues to forge the needed agreements at Elmau and implement them when they return home. This backing has been strengthened by the multi-party unity and public rally behind the need for a strong national and G7 response to the shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Legislative control is substantial overall. In Germany, host Scholz leads a three-party coalition of his Social Democrats, the Greens and Free Democrats that gives him a majority in both legislative houses, while reinforcing his desire for strong climate change action and fiscal consolidation. In the United States, Biden's Democratic Party has a precarious majority in both houses of Congress that should last until the mid-term elections in November, but probably not after that, according to current public opinion polls. In Japan, Kishida's LDP and its coalition partner currently have a majority in both houses of the Diet, which could well remain after the Upper House elections in July. In France, after the second round of elections for the National Assembly on June 19, Macron's party will remain the largest and with its centrist allies, Les Républicains, would command a majority there. In the United Kingdom, Johnson's Conservatives have a majority in both houses of Parliament, even if dissatisfaction with his leadership within his own parliamentary caucus is significant. In Italy, Draghi's coalition has a majority in both legislative chambers that seems sound. In Canada, Trudeau's Liberal Party's pact with the third-placed New Democrat Party gives him a majority for supply and confidence votes in the House of Commons, although the far less powerful Senate now has many independent members that can complicate the legislative process.

Public opinion support is solid in most members, so the polls show.

Continuity is strong, with almost all G7 leaders at Elmau being veterans of the regular annual summits in the past: Trudeau and Macron at their seventh annual G7 summit, Johnson at his fourth, von der Leyen and Michel at their third, Biden and Draghi at their second, and Kishida at his first. It is Scholz's first summit, but he participated along with his predecessor, Angela Merkel, in the G20 summit in Rome on October 30–31 last year. Moreover, all these leaders have participated together, with no changes, in the unprecedented number of virtual and in-person summits in the first half of 2022.

Confidence in their future as leaders as also strong. Macron has a fresh mandate for the next five years. Biden is assured of almost three more years, until January 2025. In members with parliamentary systems, Trudeau is likely assured of three more years, with the opposition NDP agreeing to support him into 2025. Johnson's majority mandate is good until 2024, should his parliamentary caucus remain loyal. Kishida, elected last year, probably has another three. Scholz has a very fresh mandate, which gives him another four years. Only Draghi brings more doubt, as Italy has general elections in 2023, and it is not certain that he will lead his current coalition, and win.

The professional expertise and experience of the leaders produce a good mix, with unusual strength in economics and finance and in communication skills. Biden was a lawyer and long-time legislator and deputy leader at the national level. Macron was an investment banker. Draghi is an economist and, uniquely for the G7, a former central bank governor (and one for the big, broad ECB). Johnson was a journalist. Trudeau was a school teacher. Only on security, beyond Biden, are their expertise and experience weak.

The personal commitment to the G7 of these leaders is high. Beyond their professed devotion, all have attended every scheduled and special summit. Johnson, Macron and Trudeau have hosted regular summits that produced at least good performance. Johnson called a special summit at the start of his year as host in 2021. Scholz also did in 2022.

Thus, these leaders can come together at Elmau to make decisions that credibly cover the next three years and are more likely to be complied with during the year following Elmau and beyond, propelled by all the resources that leaders uniquely control.

Compact Club at the Hub

Sixth, G7 leaders' growing trust in their personal G7 club at the hub of an expanding network of global summit governance will further propel their strong performance at Elmau.

This growing trust has been seen in and strengthened by the unprecedentedly intense sequence of G7 summits, in both virtual and in-person form, in the five months leading up to Elmau. It reached a new level with the trilogy of EU, NATO and G7 summits all held in that sequence in Brussels on the single day of March 24. This concentrated sequence will be repeated in a similar fashion for Elmau, with an EU summit in Brussels on June 23–24, the G7 summit itself in Elmau on June 26–28 and the NATO summit in Madrid immediately after on June 28.

A broader force is the fading of G20 summitry, the G20's only serious rival as a global summit governor and one once thought by some to replace the G7 (Kirton 2013). But due to deep divisions between its G7 members and the others over whether Putin should be allowed to participate in the G20's Bali Summit on November 15–16, the G20 has held not a single special summit this year, unlike the two it added in 2021 for health and for Afghanistan. And the form – and even the fact – of G7 leaders' participation at Bali remains in some doubt. Meanwhile, the leaders of Indonesia as the G20 host this year, India as G20 host in 2023, South Africa and Argentina – all G20 democracies – have already agreed to come to the G7's Elmau Summit.

Prospective Achievements

Propelled by these forces, G7 leaders at Elmau will produce a strong performance, led by their advances on the conflict in Ukraine, climate change and COVID-19.

Ukraine

On the war in Ukraine, G7 leaders will promise to give Ukraine their full support for as long as it needs to win the war and ultimately regain all its territory that Russia has seized by force (Panasiuk 2022). They will commit to provide Ukraine with more of the weapons it needs to resist and reverse Russia's invasion, to protect Ukrainians against any Russian use of weapons and materials of mass destruction, to prosecute all Russian atrocities and war crimes, and to quickly end G7 members' imports of the Russian coal, oil and natural gas that finance Russia's war against Ukraine. They will further assist Ukrainian refugees and provide humanitarian relief. They will discuss Ukraine's long-term prospects and the task of rebuilding Ukraine in clean, green, digital ways when the war is won, based on Scholz's public proposal just before the summit to prepare a "Marshall Plan" for Ukraine. They will back Ukraine's bid for admission to the European Union.

Climate Change

On the existential threat of climate change, a strong performance will come from several forces: the shocks from extreme weather events fuelled by global greenhouse gas concentrations relentlessly reaching new highs; the shortcoming of the UN's Glasgow Summit in 2021; G7 members' globally predominant financial, scientific and other required capabilities; their convergence on increasing ambitious policies, their centrality in spurring G20 and other summits to act, and a German host that put "saving the planet" first among its priorities for Elmau. G7 leaders there will launch new climate clubs, of different countries most able and willing to act on critical tasks. On climate finance, they will reinforce efforts to deliver at least $100 billion a year to developing countries, raise new resources through public and private sources, set standards for assessing and disclosing climate risk and issuing genuinely green and sustainable bonds, strengthen carbon pricing and taxation, and analytically develop carbon border adjustment mechanisms to level the global playing field.

On energy, G7 leaders will act to finally phase out fossil fuel subsidies and kill killer coal use, production and financing very soon at home and elsewhere, doing both after some members' temporary reversal just arising in response to Russia's sudden, severe, reduction of its natural gas exports to Europe. They will approve stronger standards for energy efficiency in buildings, transportation and industry, and spark the transition to electric vehicles. They will reinforce the nature-based renewables revolution, by expanding solar and wind power, and adding the reliable renewables of tidal, wave and geothermal power. They will reinforce energy security and affordability by expanding electricity grids and connectivity, sources and types of supply, and reducing excessive demand. G7 leaders will promote nature-based solutions for carbon sinks as well as sources, by globally growing over one trillion trees, preserving peatlands and protecting at least 30% of land and sea in their natural state by 2030.

COVID-19 and Health

On COVID-19, the new shock from China will force leaders to focus on ensuring the manufacture, equitable distribution, accessibility, acceptance, and use of safe, effective vaccines and therapeutics. They will address the growing burden of long COVID.

Their attention and action will expand to embrace mental illness, cancer, heart and stroke, diabetes, respiratory disease, and mental illness, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, antimicrobial resistance, the zoonotic diseases that flow from animals to humans, and more. They will try to better predict, prevent and cure diseases, though universal health coverage, primary health care, a cleaner climate, digital health, and more powerful and fully resourced WHO.

In building the global health architecture, they will help finance the new Pandemic Preparedness and response facility, by adding to the $1.1 billion already given by the United States, the European Union, Germany, Indonesia and Singapore toward its goal of reaching $1.5 billion by the time the structure is created in the months following the summit (Bahrain News Agency 2022). They will also endorse the recent decision of the World Health Assembly to increase the WHO's assessed contributions to 50% of the base budget by 2030, from only 16% at present, for a 34% increase in the WHO budget (Anderson 2022).

Economic Issues

On the economy, to counter growing inflation and slowing economic growth G7 leaders at Elmau will offer clearer, tighter monetary policy to control rapidly rising inflation, consolidated fiscal policy in support, with both carefully calibrated to sustain and spur economic growth. They will credibly promise to intervene swiftly and effectively to halt any contagious financial crises erupting within G7 and other systemically significant states.

To counter constricting trade, they will support for selective trade liberalization, including endorsement of the small advances finally made at the WTO ministerial conference in June. To mobilize trade to support environmental protection, climate change control, and labour and human rights, they will – led by the European Union – cautiously endorse the concept of more strongly using trade sanctions and instruments to enforce core environmental and labour standards, as defined and agreed at the International Labour Organization and in the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Development and Infrastructure

On development, to support progress on the largely stalled or reversing SDGs, G7 members will also offer more development assistance and debt relief for very poor countries, largely through multilateral rather than major new bilateral official development assistance of their own. Their support for development will be largely directed to increase food security and reverse the famine now increasing in an expanding array of poor countries.

On infrastructure, they will agree to launch a new global infrastructure project based on a U.S. initiative that Biden will bring to Elmau, building in a similar U.S. initiative and G7 agreement at the G7 Cornwall Summit last year (Tanaka 2022; Martin and Jacobs 2022; Goddard 2022). Designed to offer developing countries a superior alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative, it will cover physical, health and digital infrastructure, seek to mobilize hundreds of dollars over time, largely from the private sector, and include pioneering projects from major regions of the world.

Political-Security Issues

On major political-security issues, beyond Russia's invasion of Ukraine, G7 leaders will act against nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, repression against women and girls in Afghanistan, China's expansion and authoritarianism, and assaults on democracy and human rights everywhere.

G7 Institutional Strengthening

On institutionally strengthening the G7, Elmau's leaders may find time to discuss Scholz's recent publicly expressed idea that "we need like-minded or similar-minded partners. We need new partners, and we need more partners." He said that as the traditional democracies would "no longer carry enough weight in the future" and that the G7 still accounts for 45% of the world's economic output but only for about 10% of the world's population, so that the weights are shifting (DPA International Service 2022). This idea is consistent with Scholz's decision to invite to the Elmau Summit the leaders of India. Indonesia, South Africa and Argentina.

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Appendix A: G7 Summit Performance, 1975–2022 ↩

Notes:
N/A = not available.
Grade: Kirton scale is A+ = extremely strong, striking, standout, historic; A = very strong; A− = strong; B+ = significant; B = substantial; B− = solid; C = small; D = very small; F = failure (including made things worse).
Domestic political management: # communiqué compliments = the number of favourable references to G7/8 members by name. Spread = number of G7/8 members complimented.
Deliberation: # days = the duration of the summit; # statements = number of official statements issued in the leaders' name; # words = number of words contained in the official statements.
Direction setting: # affirmations of G7/8 core values of open democracy, individual liberty and human rights contained in official documents.
Decision making: # commitments contained in the official documents.
Delivery: Compliance: compliance with selected commitments assessed as follows: 1975–1989 assessed by George von Furstenberg and Joseph Daniels; 1990–1995 assessed by Ella Kokotsis; 1996–present assessed by the G7 Research Group. # commitments: number of commitments assessed.
Development of global governance: # ministerials created = number of institutions created at the ministerial level; # official-level groups created = number of institutions created at the officials' level. Institutions are created at or by the summit, or during the hosting year, at least in the form of having one meeting take place.
Participation: # members = number of leaders of full members, including those representing the European Community from the start; Russia started as a participant in 1991 and became a full member in 1998, and stopped participating in 2014; the G4 met in 1974 without Japan and Italy and later that year the G6 (without Canada) met. # participating countries = number of full members plus number of leaders from other countries. # participating international organizations = number of heads of international organizations.

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Appendix B: G7 Summits and Leaders' Statements, 2022 ↩

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Appendix C: April 7, 2022, G7 Leaders Statement Commitments, n = 17 ↩

2022A-1: We will further raise the cost of this war for the architects of this aggression, that is Russian President Vladimir Putin and his accomplices, through coordinated action, continuing to act in unity as we apply economic and financial measures in reaction to the ongoing escalation of the war.

As a matter of priority, we will immediately take the following actions, consistent with our respective legal processes:

2022A-2: We are therefore banning new investment in key sectors of the Russian economy, including the energy sector. 

2022A-3: we will further extend trade export bans on advanced goods and specific services important to Russia's security, state, and economy.

2022A-4: We will also increase import restrictions on a range of Russia's revenue raising exports.

2022A-5: we will continue to disconnect Russian banks from the global financial system. 

2022A-6: we will escalate pressure, including by imposing additional sanctions on state-owned entities that comprise the main drivers of Russia's economy.

2022A-7: we will continue and elevate our campaign against the elites and their family members who support President Putin in his war effort and squander the resources of the Russian people.

2022A-8: Consistent with our legal frameworks, we will impose sanctions on additional individuals and entities.

2022A-9: we will impose additional sanctions against Russia's defence sector to undermine and erode the capabilities of the Russian military to wage war.

2022A-10: we will expedite our plans to reduce reliance on Russia for our energy, which include phasing out and banning Russian coal imports.

2022A-11: We will also accelerate our work to reduce our dependency on Russian oil.

2022A-12: As we do so, we will work together and with partners to ensure stable and sustainable global energy supplies, including by accelerating reduction of our overall reliance on fossil fuels and our transition to clean energy.

2022A-13: We will intensify our collective implementation and enforcement of existing measures, including by strengthening our national enforcement authorities and working with our partners to prevent "sanctions busting" through evasion, circumvention and backfilling.

2022A-14: We will continue to work with partners to actively address energy, food and other impacts of Russia's action on third countries and our own people.

2022A-15: we will address the consequences of the global crisis on food security through a joint G7 effort, in close cooperation with international bodies such as the World Food Programme, Multilateral Development Banks and International Financial Institutions

2022A-16: [we will address the consequences of the global crisis on food security through] …exploration of the Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission (FARM).

2022A-17: We will continue to provide coordinated political, financial, material and humanitarian to the Ukrainian people and Government both for their immediate needs as well as with a view to the longer-term reconstruction of the country, including by exploring a Ukraine Solidarity Fund.

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Appendix D: G7 Ministerial Meetings and Statements, 2022 ↩

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