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The History of the G7 and Canada
John Kirton, G7 Research Group
Prepared for “History Matters,” Global Affairs Canada, June 2, 2025
On June 15-17, 2025, the 51st G7 summit takes place in Kananaskis, Alberta, amidst the majestic Rocky Mountains, near a real sunny, summit mountaintop.
Most people want to know, what will it, can it and should it do?
To help get an answer from the outside, it is useful to recall, where the G7 came from, what it’s done before, and what Canada has helped it do.
My answers start with these.
The G7 was created in 1975, by a shocked and vulnerable America, whose leaders knew they needed help from Canada and their fellow democratic powers, to survive and thrive together over the next 50 years.
Let’s look more closely at these points.
First, what is the G7?
It is an annual private meeting, of the most powerful leaders, of the most powerful democracies, with the most advanced economies, in the world.
They are the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada, and, since 1977, today’s European Union too.
Each of their leaders takes turns designing, preparing, hosting and chairing the annual summit. In the batting order, France comes first, then the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, and finally Canada in the clean-up spot.
Canada’s first domestically produced summit was Pierre Trudeau’s at Ottawa and Montebello in 1981. Then came Brian Mulroney’s at Toronto in 1988, Jean Chrétien’s at Halifax in 1995 and again at Kananaskis in 2002, Stephen Harper’s at Muskoka in 2010, and Justin Trudeau’s at Charlevoix in 2018.
The G7 summit was conceived and created in 1975 by US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, when America and its democratic allies were on the ropes, from six successive shocks.
The first was the trade and tariff shock on August 15, 1971. That Sunday evening US president Richard Nixon suddenly imposed a 10% tariff surcharge on all dutiable imports into the United States, with Canada his target number one.
The second was the energy shock on October 17, 1973. Then the Middle East–led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) countries cut their oil exports to the US and its other democratic allies, to stop them supporting a democratic Israel invaded yet again by its Arab neighbours just before.
The third was the nuclear shock on May 18, 1974. Then India exploded a nuclear device, becoming the first country to join the nuclear weapons club since 1964.
The fourth was the democratic shock of August 9, 1974. Then President Nixon finally resigned because he had illegally rigged the presidential election to win it in 1972.
The fifth was the financial shock of April 1975. Then New York City descended to the brink of bankruptcy and igniting a global financial crisis as a result.
The sixth was the military shock on April 30, 1975. That day the last American helicopter rose from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon and America lost its then longest war.
To save America and the democratic world, Kissinger decided to create a concert of the leaders of all and only the world’s major powers. But unlike the Concert of Europe he had done his PhD thesis on, this would be a democratic concert.
At their first summit in Rambouillet, France, in November 1975, the leaders declared in their concluding communiqué that the distinctive mission of their new club was to protect within its own members, and to promote globally, the values of open democracy, individual liberty and social advance.
Canada was a member from the start. It was even though French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as host did not invite his only fellow francophone leader, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
But before, Kissinger had assured Trudeau that the US would call a second summit, very soon and invite Trudeau to take his seat.
Kissinger knew that he needed Canada inside the club, because Canada was a natural resource and energy superpower.
When the OPEC shock had hit, Kissinger thought it would inspire several copycat cartels from an empowered global south. So, he asked his staff to identify the top global producers of every critical mineral and commodity, to see if they could, and thus would, band together against America too.
The results showed that in the top tier came the autocratic Soviet Union as the Cold War enemy and often apartheid South Africa too. But – to Kissinger’s great surprise and relief – came democratic Canada too. So, to kill any new cartels, he knew he had to keep Canada in the club. He thus called a second G7 summit at San Juan, Puerto Rico, in June 1976, with Trudeau there.
This now G7 annual summit and its supporting system have slowly but surely become the centre of global governance. It has reinforced and then replaced at the centre the old Bretton Woods–United Nations bodies born in, and for, the world of 1944 and 1945.
G7 governance has expanded to shape the global order across most domains – security, economy, development, energy, ecology, society and technology too. Its agenda and action added gender equality at Kananaskis in 2002.
From the start its leaders made big decisions (see Appendix A). The number and ambition of their precise, future-oriented, politically obligatory, public commitments slowly rose, and has soared since 2002. There were only 14 at Rambouillet 1975, but 429 at Cornwall in 2021, 545 at Elmau, Germany in 2022, an all-time peak of 698 at Hiroshima in 2023, and 469 at Apulia, Italy, last year.[1]
But do these politicians keep the promises they make when they’re abroad together, as well as at home alone, when they descend from the sunny summit mountaintop back into the dark valleys of domestic politics again?
Yes, they largely do.
Their government’s implementation of their commitments during the following year has averaged 78%, for a good B+ grade.
And it has risen a lot since the start.
From 1975 to their Cold War victory in 1989, it averaged only 66% – a mid C grade.
For the most recent four years, from 2020 under Donald Trump to 2024 with Joe Biden there, it averaged 90% – A+!
Which members implement their commitments the most?
The European Union at 88%, then the United Kingdom at 86%. Then Canada comes third at 84%, Germany at 82%, and the United States, the most powerful member, at 81%.
At or below the overall 78% average come France at 78%, Japan at 75%, and Italy at 67%.
On what subjects does Canada do best?
It gets the gold medal on macroeconomic policy, health and gender equality.
It gets the silver on the environment and trade.
It gets the bronze on digitalization including artificial intelligence (AI) and terrorism.
If past is prelude, it is worth noting that Canada leads on those subjects where its current prime minister’s expertise and the Kananaskis Summit’s priorities stand out – macroeconomic policy, the environment, trade and AI.
Driving these numbers are the several standout successes that G7 summits have produced during their first half century of work.
The greatest of all was winning the Cold War by 1989.
To the G7 leaders at their Paris Summit on July 16, 1989, USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, sent his surrender letter on behalf of the Soviet Union, Soviet bloc and Soviet system, saying, in effect, “I want into the democratic west.”
He did not send it to UN secretary general in New York City, or to the US president in Washington DC. He sent to the G7, because he knew that’s where the centre of global governance now was.
Ten years later, in 1998, the remnant, reforming Russia had become enough of a democratizing major power to be admitted as a full member of a now G8.
It remained there for 16 years. But then it was suspended for bad behaviour in 2014, because Russian president Vladimir Putin decided to invade and annex the Crimean region of Ukraine.
But his Russia became the only significant power liberated from the Soviet system in 1989 that decided to turn back to its old authoritarian, command-economy ways.
Thus, the democratic revolution of 1989 remains in place around the world to this day.[2]
As the G7 leaders proclaimed at their Houston Summit in 1990: “When people are free to choose, they chose freedom.”
Canada’s contribution to this growing G7 governance also grew in many ways.
Canada effectively used the G7 to protect its national interests – of survival, security, sovereignty, legitimacy, territory and relative capability.
It also effectively used the G7 to globally promote its distinctive national values – of anti-militarism, openness, multiculturalism, environmentalism, globalism and international institutionalization.
Its top ten achievements started right after Canada entered this exclusive, top-tier, global club as the acknowledged “principal power” it was.
First, from 1976 to 1981 Canada shaped the G7 to become the centre of global security governance, and led the anti-nuclear weapons loyal opposition there.
At Puerto Rico in 1976, host Gerald Ford, with Henry Kissinger by his side, asked Pierre Trudeau to lead off the leaders’ discussion on energy. Trudeau, as a passionate anti-nuclear weapons advocate, feeling personally betrayed by India’s recent nuclear weapons explosion, planned to extend his remarks into nuclear energy and the nuclear weapons proliferation it brought. The nuclear armed US, UK and France thought that only the Permanent Five (P5) members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should address such things. But Trudeau succeeded the next year, when a sympathetic Jimmy Carter, a former nuclear submarine engineer, now represented the United States.
A persistent Trudeau’s big breakthrough came at Ottawa in 1981, when as chair he held the pen in crafting the collective communiqué. In their main declaration all leaders – including those of the nuclear weapons P5 powers, namely Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand – committed to control nuclear weapons proliferation, align their east-west economic objectives with their security ones, and improve their trade and technology sanctions on the USSR.
Second, at Tokyo in 1979, the G7 invented the global governance of climate change. The leaders produced the most stringent targets and timetable and effective implementation the world has ever seen. They also ended for good the serious oil shocks from the Middle East. And, for the first time, they welcomed Indochinese refugees fleeing persecution from their communist governments back home.
Prime Minister Joe Clark, from an environmentalist, demographically open Canada, was in the vanguard of all three breakthroughs, backing German chancellor Helmut Schmidt as the initiator of the first.
Third, at Williamsburg in 1983, Pierre Trudeau secured a summit mandate for the peace initiative he took the following year, to bring the Americans and Soviets back from the brink of an imminent, accidental, nuclear exchange, when their leaders had stopped speaking to each other for five years. At Trudeau’s urging, Reagan and his fellow G7 leaders declared: “We commit ourselves to devote our full political resources to reducing the threat of war. We have a vision of a world in which the shadow of war has been lifted from all mankind, and we are determined to pursue that vision.”
After a year of intense summit travel around the world, Trudeau succeeded. At Thatcher’s London Summit the following year, G7 leaders declared: “we are determined to pursue the search for extended political dialogue and long-term cooperation with the Soviet Union and her allies. Contacts exist and are being developed in a number of fields. Each of us will pursue all useful opportunities for dialogue.”
Imminent nuclear disaster had been replaced by dialogue and détente, and, a decade later, by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the arrival of democracy in the remnant Russia.
Fourth, at the Toronto Summit in 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, along with his foreign minister Joe Clark, got all G7 leaders, including Thatcher, to declare their “abhorrence of apartheid, which must be replaced through a process of genuine national negotiations by a non-racial democracy.” They also agreed that “the enactment of legislation designed to deprive antiapartheid organizations of overseas aid would place severe strain on the relations each of us has with South Africa.”
The year before, at the Venice Summit, Mulroney had put South African apartheid on the G7 agenda by hijacking the summit discussion with a lengthy intervention on a subject that Thatcher had long thought she owned alone.
And a few years after Toronto, South Africa became a multiracial democracy and Canada made Nelson Mandela an honorary citizen of its own.
Fifth, at Toronto in 1988, Mulroney also got G7 leaders to “strongly welcome” the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) that he and Reagan, attending his final summit, had just signed. It was the central and defining issue in the general election that Mulroney called shortly after the summit.
This strong seal of approval from all G7 leaders – including a Japan long disapproving of bilateral trade deals – worked. It helped Mulroney win his second majority mandate a few months later, and brought CUFTA to life, to serve as the platform for North American Free Trade Agreement and the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement we have today.
At Toronto, Mulroney also got the G7 to agree on the innovative “Toronto Terms” for debt relief for the poorest countries in the world.
Sixth, at Halifax in 1995, Prime Minister Chrétien, hosting his first G7 summit, got his fellow leaders, including those of the EU, which had Spain as a member, to save the fish. They promised to “promote a successful UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks and international consensus at the next CSD [Commission on Sustainable Development] session on action to deal with the problems of the world’s oceans.”
This confirmed Canada’s victory in the Turbot War, which Canada had started earlier that year. It had done so by unilaterally firing on a Spanish vessel fishing in waters adjacent to Canada, and thus destroying the tiny turbot, other fish and the livelihood and communities that depended on them in Newfoundland, and, importantly, in Quebec’s francophone Gaspésie.
Seventh, francophone Quebec – “speak of it never, think of it always.” This was the approach that Chrétien followed to stop Quebec separation and preserve Caada’s basic national interest of survival through national unity at Halifax in 1995.
To help a united Canada win the closely fought referendum to secede that Quebec separatists would hold in 1995, Chrétien initially planned to hold his G7 summit in their provincial capital of Quebec City. But when things turned for the worse, Chrétien turned to tough love. He moved his summit elsewhere to show Quebec voters what life would be life for a small, separate Quebec thrown out of the G7 global governance club. He moved it to Halifax, from which the young men and women of a united Canada had sailed twice in the war-drenched twentieth century to help Canada’s mother country of France survive.
Chrétien changed the name of the building where the leaders meet from “Cornwallis Place” to “Canada Place” to prevent the arousal of any bad memories of how badly anglophones had treated francophones in Canada in the past. On the first evening of the summit, when he learned that a French peacekeeper had been killed in the Balkans, Chrétien instantly had the summit issue a statement strongly sympathizing with, and supporting, France.
It worked. Seeing the glow of Chrétien’s summit success, and sensing that France would not recognize an independent Quebec, the separatists delayed their referendum to October 30, 1995. And that evening when the first returns came in, from the Gaspesie, where those Quebec fishers lived, Chrétien knew that a united Canada would win, as it did, when morning dawned the next day.
Eighth, at the now G8 Kananaskis Summit in 2002, an experienced Chrétien, hosting his second summit, put Africa first. Following the agreement he got from his colleagues at the Genoa Summit in 2001, he invited four African leaders to participate as equals on the summit’s final day, where the G8 leaders would agree to do what their African peers asked them to.
This they did. Kananaskis’s historically high 187 commitments were led by those in its G8 Africa Action Plan. And more came in the separate documents on the Chair’s Summary, the Enhanced HIPC [heavily indebted poor countries] Initiative, the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, Russia’s Role in the G8, Education for All, Digital Opportunities for All, and, not least, Transport Security.
The last one directly helped a highly vulnerable United States that was still shocked by the deadly 9/11 terrorist attacks from the air on its Pentagon, its World Trade Center and almost its Congress too. These attacks led Alberta’s premier to demand that the G7 summit be moved out of Alberta, and some to doubt that the US president would even attend.
But Chrétien and his G8 won. So did Russia’s Putin, who was allowed to host a G8 summit four rather than eight years later. And so did the women, for the G8 made its first ever commitments on gender equality, known as “women in development” back then.[3]
At Muskoka in 2010, Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper mobilized major new money for maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH). These were the two of the eight UN-agreed Millenium Development Goals that were furthest behind being met by their due date of 2015.
Harper got the cash-strapped G8 leaders to mobilize $5 billion on the spot, just before he got them to promise to reduce their deficit and debts by a specific amount and deadline the next day at the G20’s Toronto Summit.
Harper soon raised the MNCH pool to $40 billion at the UN in September. To ensure it was actually delivered and spent well, he created and co-chaired with an African leader an accountability commission. And before he left office, he held another MNCH summit in Toronto to review the results and raise more money for the cause.
In this way Harper enriched Chrétien’s Kananaskis legacy by making the G8 summit work for development, for Africa, and for women.
At Charlevoix in 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invent the global governance of artificial intelligence. AI itself had been invented in Canada, at the University of Toronto, by Professor Geoffrey Hinton. But the global governance of AI was invented when the G7 leaders, including Trump at Charlevoix, made 23 commitments about the principles and rules that would guide and regulate AI.
These were the G7’s first, and most, commitments until the leaders at Apulia last year produced 24. At Charlevoix leaders followed a precautionary approach, to reduce the risks and reinforce gender equality in AI’s development and use.
Gender equality overall had 82 commitments, the most by far to this day. Charlevoix also made major advance on protecting the oceans from plastic and other harms.
There will be more G7 history made two weeks from now at Kananaskis II.
But that’s all for now.
Thank you for attention and patience. I look forward to the many questions you have.
[1] At the six summits Canada has hosted, Montebello in 1981 produced 48 commitments, Toronto in 1988 made 27, Halifax in 1995 made 78, Kananaskis I in 2002 made 187, Muskoka made 44 and Charlevoix in 2018 made Canada’s all-time high of 315. It seems that Canada’s summits hosted by Liberal Party prime ministers always produce more commitments than those produced by the Progressive Conservative and Conservative prime ministers. The four summits produced by Liberal prime ministers average 157 commitments, while the two produced by Conservative ones average only 69. ↩
[2] In this regard, today’s Ukraine leads the world. ↩
[3] There were two core gender equality commitments, which had compliance of 100%. There were no more core gender equality commitments until 2015, when German chancellor Angela Merkel hosted at Elmau I and Justin Trudeau arrived to help produce 20. ↩
| Year | Grade | Domestic political management | Deliberation | Direction setting | Decision making | Delivery | Development of global governance | Participation | |||||||
| # communiqué compliments | Spread | # days | # statements | # words | # references to core values | # commitments | Compliance | # assessed | # ministerials created | # official-level groups created | # members | # participating countries | # participating international organizations | ||
| 1975 | A− | 2 | 29% | 3 | 1 | 1,129 | 5 | 15 | 54% | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 1976 | D | 0 | 0% | 2 | 1 | 1,624 | 0 | 10 | n/a | n/a | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| 1977 | B− | 1 | 13% | 2 | 6 | 2,669 | 0 | 55 | n/a | n/a | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1978 | A | 1 | 13% | 2 | 2 | 2,999 | 0 | 50 | 57% | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1979 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 2 | 2,102 | 0 | 55 | n/a | n/a | 1 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1980 | C+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 5 | 3,996 | 3 | 54 | n/a | n/a | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1981 | C | 1 | 13% | 2 | 3 | 3,165 | 0 | 48 | 50% | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1982 | C | 0 | 0% | 3 | 2 | 1,796 | 0 | 39 | 15% | 1 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 1983 | B | 0 | 0% | 3 | 2 | 2,156 | 7 | 39 | 22% | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1984 | C− | 1 | 13% | 3 | 5 | 3,261 | 0 | 31 | 27% | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1985 | E | 4 | 50% | 3 | 2 | 3,127 | 1 | 24 | 64% | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1986 | B+ | 3 | 25% | 3 | 4 | 3,582 | 1 | 39 | 29% | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 1987 | D | 2 | 13% | 3 | 7 | 5,064 | 0 | 53 | 65% | 1 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 1988 | C− | 3 | 25% | 3 | 3 | 4,872 | 0 | 27 | n/a | n/a | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1989 | B+ | 3 | 38% | 3 | 11 | 7,125 | 1 | 61 | 47% | 4 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Average/ Total |
600/ 40 |
43% | 20 | ||||||||||||
| 1990 | D | 3 | 38% | 3 | 3 | 7,601 | 10 | 78 | 45% | 4 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1991 | B− | 1 | 13% | 3 | 3 | 8,099 | 8 | 53 | 69% | 2 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 0 |
| 1992 | D | 1 | 13% | 3 | 4 | 7,528 | 5 | 41 | 86% | 3 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 1993 | C+ | 0 | 0% | 3 | 2 | 3,398 | 2 | 29 | 79% | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| 1994 | C | 1 | 13% | 3 | 2 | 4,123 | 5 | 53 | 86% | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| 1995 | B+ | 3 | 25% | 3 | 3 | 7,250 | 0 | 78 | 65% | 1 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| 1996 | B | 1 | 13% | 3 | 5 | 15,289 | 6 | 128 | 71% | 23 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 4 |
| 1997 | C− | 16 | 88% | 3 | 4 | 12,994 | 6 | 145 | 63% | 11 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 0 |
| Average/ Total |
606/ 76 |
71% | |||||||||||||
| 1998 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 3 | 4 | 6,092 | 5 | 73 | 71% | 13 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 1999 | B+ | 4 | 22% | 3 | 4 | 10,019 | 4 | 46 | 73% | 10 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 2000 | B | 1 | 11% | 3 | 5 | 13,596 | 6 | 105 | 87% | 29 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 3 |
| 2001 | B | 1 | 11% | 3 | 7 | 6,214 | 3 | 58 | 74% | 20 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 2002 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 18 | 11,959 | 10 | 187 | 68% | 24 | 1 | 8 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| 2003 | C | 0 | 0% | 3 | 14 | 16,889 | 17 | 206 | 81% | 20 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 12 | 5 |
| 2004 | C+ | 0 | 0% | 3 | 16 | 38,517 | 11 | 245 | 77% | 33 | 0 | 15 | 10 | 12 | 0 |
| 2005 | A− | 8 | 67% | 3 | 16 | 22,286 | 29 | 212 | 83% | 28 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 6 |
| 2006 | B+ | 6 | 44% | 3 | 15 | 30,695 | 256 | 317 | 70% | 28 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 5 | 9 |
| 2007 | B+ | 12 | 100% | 3 | 8 | 25,857 | 86 | 329 | 77% | 31 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 2008 | B+ | 8 | 78% | 3 | 6 | 16,842 | 33 | 296 | 73% | 29 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 15 | 6 |
| 2009 | B | 13 | 67% | 3 | 10 | 31,167 | 62 | 254 | 77% | 27 | 2 | 9 | 10 | 28 | 10 |
| 2010 | C | 10 | 89% | 2 | 2 | 7,161 | 32 | 44 | 75% | 21 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 9 | 0 |
| 2011 | B+ | 14 | 67% | 2 | 5 | 19,071 | 172 | 196 | 78% | 18 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 7 | 4 |
| 2012 | B+ | 7 | 67% | 2 | 2 | 3,640 | 42 | 81 | 78% | 22 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 1 |
| 2013 | B+ | 13 | 60% | 2 | 4 | 13,494 | 71 | 214 | 79% | 27 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 6 | 1 |
| Average/ Total 1998–2013 |
2,863/ 179 |
76% | |||||||||||||
| Average/ Total 1990–2013 |
3,446/ 144 |
74% | |||||||||||||
| 2014 | B | 6 | 44% | 2 | 1 | 5,106 | 42 | 141 | 85% | 24 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | B+ | 2 | 25% | 2 | 2 | 12,674 | 20 | 376 | 79% | 35 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 6 | 6 |
| 2016 | B− | 22 | 63% | 2 | 7 | 23,052 | 95 | 342 | 69% | 28 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 7 | 5 |
| 2017 | B | 2 | 25% | 2 | 4 | 8,614 | 158 | 180 | 79% | 22 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 5 | 6 |
| 2018 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 8 | 11,224 | 56 | 315 | 78% | 42 | 1 | 9 | 12 | 4 | |
| 2019 | B− | 6 | 57% | 3 | 10 | 7,202 | 71 | 76% | 27 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 8 | 8 | |
| 2020 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 1 | 1 | 795 | 0 | 25 | 94% | 20 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 4 | n/a |
| 2021 | A− | 4 | 50% | 3 | 3 | 20,677 | 130 | 429 | 89% | 29 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 3 |
| 2022 | A− | 1 | 13% | 3 | 8 | 19,179 | 118 | 545 | 92% | 21 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 6 | 9 |
| 2023 | A | 17 | 75% | 3 | 6 | 30,046 | 57 | 698 | - | - | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 7 |
| Average/ Total 2014–2023 |
60/ 6 |
23 | 50/ 5 |
138,587/ 13,858 |
676/ 75 |
3,122/ 312 |
82% | 248/ 28 |
6 | 7 | 9 | 61/ 6 |
48/ 5 |
||
| Total | 204 | 27.57 | 129 | 268 | 527,017 | 1,575 | 7,093 | 15.98 | 696 | 21 | 102 | 429 | 193 | 106 | |
| Average | 4.2 | 0.6 | 2.6 | 5.5 | 10,755.4 | 32.8 | 147.8 | 0.4 | 16.5 | 0.4 | 2.1 | 8.8 | 3.9 | 2.2 | |
| 2024 | A− | 14 | 75% | 3 | 1 | 19,795 | 81 (30+51) | 469 | 9 | ||||||
Updated: Brittaney Warren, October 14, 2023, John Kirton, June 17, 2024.
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/G8 members by name. Spread = number of G7/G8 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/G8 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 elsewhere by George von Furstenberg and Joseph Daniels; 1990–1995 assessed elsewhere by Ella Kokotsis; 1996–2024 assessed by the G7 Research Group. # commitments: number of commitments assessed.
Development of global governance: # ministerials created = number of institutions at the ministerial level created; # official-level groups created = number of institutions at the officials-level created. Institutions 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 until its last participation in 2013; 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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