Video PlayerClose

ROME, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Converting to a circular economy is "a truly irreversible process" and the circular economy is no longer just environmental policy but economic policy as well, Italian Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said Sunday.

"We signed accords with multinationals, including U.S. ones such as Unilever -- they are the ones asking us to convert to a circular economy," Galletti told reporters at the end of the first day of an environmental meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) nations.

He also said that China and Europe are destined to take over global leadership on climate change after the U.S. withdraws from the 2016 Paris Agreement.

The agenda set by current G7 president Italy includes the fight against global warming, in spite of U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he would withdraw his country from the global Agreement that went into force in October last year.

The Paris Agreement has so far been ratified by 148 of the 197 countries that signed on to it.

Patricia Espinosa, chief of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), reminded reporters that under terms of the Paris Agreement that went into effect in 2016, the U.S. is still bound by the landmark global treaty for the next three years.

"While reiterating the fact that they are withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the U.S. insisted that they will continue lowering their emissions," Professor of Environmental Economics Carlo Carraro from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told reporters.

The IPCC is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

The gathering hosted by Italy's Galletti included his counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, plus the European Commission, the United Nations, and four invited countries: Chile, Ethiopia, the Maldives, and Rwanda.