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Today’s newsletter looks at the final environment, social and governance (ESG) outcomes at the Group of Seven summit this week, including a moment when U.S. President Donald Trump told a roomful of global leaders "I'm the boss". I guess that’s the governance part sorted.
Last year, Trump had left the G7 summit a day early due to the situation in the Middle East.
This time, leaders seemed relieved he had stayed till the end – ahead of a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles later in the day.
The group agreed to several joint statements, from Ukraine to AI and critical minerals.
* Finding common ground with Trump
"I'm the boss," Trump told G7 chiefs and reporters as he arrived to take his seat at a session on global economic security.
Trump's boss' comment – a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of an unspoken truth hanging over the summit of the Group of Seven Western powers in the French resort of Evian-les-Bains – followed a joint leaders' statement that could bolster Ukraine's growing leverage in potential peace talks with Moscow.
Click here to watch a really gripping video with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dialling in from the summit to speak to our very own Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni at the Reuters NEXT conference in London.
The joint G7 statement and comments from leaders suggest Trump has warmed to Zelenskiy's argument after years of scepticism. This showed a "real change in approach" from the United States regarding the Ukraine war, France’s President Emmanuel Macron said, calling the summit a "success."
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said leaders "found common ground (with Trump) and that can't always be taken for granted," while Canada's Mark Carney praised "a change in position on the part of the United States and President Trump."
G7 chiefs also welcomed a preliminary peace deal between the United States and Iran and said they were ready to help implement it, but left with no commitment from Trump on what their role, if any, could be.
"If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?" he said.
* Critical minerals
G7 leaders agreed to step up coordination to cut their countries' reliance on China for critical minerals, including plans to align stockpiling and launch a new platform with an expanded role for the International Energy Agency.
Western powers are racing to diversify their sources of metals critical to defence, tech and renewable energy and reduce their over-reliance on China for these products.
Without naming China, the leaders said they aim to reduce dependence on any one supplier outside the G7 and partner countries for rare earths and permanent magnets to below 60% by 2030, with an ultimate goal of 50% "as soon as possible".
"We are committed to working towards establishing harmonized, interoperable mechanisms .... This would start with two pilot critical minerals – lithium and nickel – and aim to avoid undermining competitiveness or imposing excessive cost burdens," the leaders said in a joint statement.
The mechanisms would later expand to five new minerals each year with a focus on rare earth elements.
Keep scrolling for today’s ESG Lens on the power plants being used to power the data centers behind the rise of AI.
* Talking Points
* ESG Lens
Power plants powering data centers: I am constantly on the lookout for interesting data center pieces and the article from Reuters U.S. climate and energy policy correspondent Valerie Volcovici this week was really insightful.
Dozens of large off-grid power plant projects are being approved rapidly and often under a cover of secrecy across the United States to supply the tech industry’s booming demand for powering data centers, according to a Reuters review of regulatory filings and interviews with public officials, residents, researchers and company executives. Click here to read the in-depth insight article.
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