Publication of a major new United Nations report on climate change is being held up because of infighting over emissions targets and financial aid to developing nations.
The major issue over the hold-up is a battle between rich countries and developing nations over emissions targets and financial aid to vulnerable nations, according to CTV News Canada.
The report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meant to cap a series that digests vast amounts of research on global warming compiled since the Paris climate accord was agreed upon in 2015.
The fourth and final installment of the sixth assessment report (AR6) by the IPCC has been formulated by the world’s leading climate scientists and is called the synthesis report because it draws together the key findings of the preceding three main sections.
The first three sections covered the physical science of the climate crisis, including observations and projections of global heating, the impacts of the climate crisis and how to adapt to them, and ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They were published in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
It is important to note that there is no new science in this current report – it is just a recap of the main findings of the previous publications.
According to the Associated Press, the report was supposed to be approved by government delegations Friday at the end of a weeklong meeting in the Swiss town of Interlaken.
Th4 deadline for signing off on the report was repeatedly extended over the weekend as rich nations, such as China, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Nations and the European Union, haggled over the wording of key phrases in the text.
While a summary of the report was finally approved on Sunday, there is still the risk that agreement on the main text may need to be postponed to a later meeting, according to three sources close to the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the talks, said the Associated Press.
Among the thorniest issues was how to define which nations count as vulnerable developing countries, making them eligible for cash from a ‘loss and damage’ fund agreed upon at the last U.N. climate talks in Egypt.
Delegates also battled over figures stating how much greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut over the coming years, and how to include artificial or natural carbon removal efforts in the equations, add The Hill.
Interestingly, The United States, the country that has released the biggest amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since industrialization, has pushed back strongly against the notion of taking historic responsibility for climate change.
Observers said the IPCC meetings have increasingly become politicized as the stakes for curbing global warming increase. While average global temperatures have already increased by 1.1 Celsius since the 19th century, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres still insists that the 1.5-degree target limit remains possible “with rapid and deep emissions reductions across all sectors of the global economy.”
