THIS year’s G7 summit concluded on Tuesday in Germany with few big agreements, and the body badly needs more boldness to tackle the growing range of challenges from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Take the example of energy security where there was no strong consensus behind any genuinely new, game-changing initiatives, despite sky-high prices. To be sure, G7 ministers are now looking into a cap on the price of Russian oil and possibly gas too; however, this could take weeks, if not months to finalise, and is far from certain to materialise with the potential “devil in the detail”.

There was also a tension between short-term energy goals, and longer-term climate ambitions. For instance, some leaders sought agreement that “publicly supported” investments in natural gas projects are “necessary” to quell the current energy crisis. Yet this potentially clashes with public commitments made at COP 26 only last year which concerned other leaders.