The G7 summit was mere spectacle – for the sake of the planet, Cop26 needs to be different

For months, preparations have been underway for the first significant post-lockdown gathering of leaders of the democratic world. The G7 in Carbis Bay. The fine details of where they would stay, what they would eat and what they would talk about would have been considered in minute detail. So important are these events that even the inclement British weather put its best foot forward, bathing the Cornish coast in golden sunlight.

There’s nothing quite like a good junket to entertain and delight. We judged the wives’ outfits and relished the details of the bitchy asides shared oh so helpfully with the waiting press packs. Her Majesty the Queen even saw fit to brandish a sword, merely to cut a cake, proving beyond doubt her eye for the theatre required to keep the punters happy.

Despite the photocalls and the global attention, however, a niggle remains: do such gatherings still serve a useful purpose? Or is the G7 and other summits like it more spectacle than special? It’s a thought Adrian Chiles posed to me on his BBC Radio 5 Live show last Friday and my instant reaction was resounding support for these summits… Except when you drill into it, the process does feel staid.

Agendas and the diplomacy are pre-agreed and incredibly well rehearsed; the bland official communiques released are designed to be high level, generic and pretty inoffensive. So how does the real business of discussion take place? And how are these commitments then truly accountable?

The world started strong with a pre-G7 announcement of a global tax agreement ensuring a minimum level of tax to be paid by multinational companies where they operate. We even got good news on global vaccine supplies but for some a commitment for 1 billion doses to the world’s poorest nations did not go far enough.

The summit itself failed to live up to its early promise or indeed the rhetoric that preceded it. We got that everyone is “building back better” and surprisingly in a more “gender neutral feminine way”. What is less clear are the specific outcomes that will achieve it. How exactly are we going to measure the femininity of our recovery? Will there be a graph at the next summit detailing it? Perhaps we’ll be told soon what we’re building that would be so much better? The platitudes are endless.

Then of course there are the diplomatic distractions, such as the sausage wars which dominated despite not actually being on the agenda. European leaders reportedly complained about spending time on the immediate politics of a treaty they’ve already signed rather than the long-term good they were hoping to achieve.

The most economically advanced nations in the world have faced an existential challenge. Covid exacerbated global tensions and stress tested our systems to the extreme. Undoubtedly, in a post-Brexit, post-Trump world, international cooperation with our most important allies is a top priority but only if it’s meaningful. The world is looking to the richest nations not for moral leadership but practicality and purpose. There are real-time issues that need to be tackled right now.

We saw real momentum around protecting biodiversity at this summit, clear actions and targets but we need to know these measures will be delivered on. We need to learn the lessons of the G7 and ensure the issue of climate at Cop26 in November has definitive measurable objectives. The action here must be real and we have to hold the leaders of all G7 nations accountable for the commitments they’ve made, not only when it’s politically expedient or because they needed something good to say at the end of the jolly.

In-person diplomacy matters. The event itself has become too much of an industry but the intent is real. Thousands of people will have been thrashing out details behind the scenes in order to reach conclusions and progress on solutions to deal with some of the world’s biggest challenges. We just need to ensure that these commitments last for more than the duration of the weekend.

Salma Shah is a partner at Portland, the communications and public affairs company, and was special adviser to the former home secretary, Sajid Javid