U.N. climate change report is OKd
BERLIN — International governments have given their blessing to a major new U.N. report on climate change, after its approval was held up by a battle between rich and developing countries over emissions targets and financial aid to vulnerable nations.
The report by hundreds of the world’s top scientists was approved by government delegations Sunday, rather than as expected on Friday, at the end of a weeklong meeting in the Swiss town of Interlaken.
The closing gavel was repeatedly pushed back as officials from China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the European Union haggled through the weekend over the wording of key phrases in the text.
The report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change caps a series that digests vast amounts of research on global warming compiled since the Paris climate accord in 2015.
A summary of the report was approved early Sunday, but agreement on the main text dragged on for several more hours.
The U.N. said it plans to publish the report at a news conference Monday afternoon.
The unusual process of having countries sign off on a scientific report is intended to ensure that governments accept the findings as authoritative advice upon which to base their actions.
At the start of the meeting, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called on delegates to provide “cold, hard facts” to drive home the message that there’s little time left to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial times.
Although average global temperatures have increased by 1.1 Celsius since the 19th century, the 1.5-degree target limit remains possible “with rapid and deep emissions reductions across all sectors of the global economy,” Guterres said.
Observers said the IPCC meetings have become increasingly politicized as the stakes for curbing global warming increase, mirroring the annual U.N. climate talks that usually take place at the end of the year.
Among the thorniest issues at the latest meeting was how to define vulnerable developing countries, which are eligible for cash from a “loss and damage” fund agreed on at the last U.N. climate talks in Egypt.
Delegates have also battled over figures stating how much greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut over the coming years and how to include in those equations artificial or natural carbonremoval efforts.
As the country that has released the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since industrialization, the United States has pushed back strongly against the notion of historic responsibility for climate change.