A battle between rich and developing countries over emissions targets and financial aid to vulnerable nations has held up the publication of a major new United Nations report on climate change.
The report was done by hundreds of the world’s top scientists and was due for approval by government delegations Friday at the end of a week-long meeting in the Swiss town of Interlaken.
However, wording of key phrases in the text saw intense haggling among officials from big nations such as China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Nations and the European Union through the weekend, resulting in the deadline been repeatedly extended.
The report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is meant to cap a series that analysed vasts amounts of research on global warming compiled since the Paris climate accord was agreed in 2015.
Although a summary of the report was approved early Sunday, sources close to the talks and who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the talks have told reporters that there is a risk that agreement on the main text may need to be postponed to a later meeting.
The unusual process of having countries sign off on a scientific report is intended to ensure that governments accept its findings as authoritative advice on which to base their actions.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the start of the meeting called on delegates to provide “ cold, hard facts ” to drive home the message that there’s little time left for the world to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times.
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Average global temperatures have already increased by 1.1 Celsius since the 19th century, but Guterrres remain optimistic that the 1.5-degree target limit remains possible “with rapid and deep emissions reductions across all sectors of the global economy.”
Meanwhile, observers said the IPCC meetings have increasingly become 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.
One of the most controversial issues at the current meeting is how to define which nations count as vulnerable developing countries, making them eligible for cash from a ‘loss and damage’ fund agreed at the last U.N. climate talks in Egypt. Figures stating how much greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by over the coming years, and how to include artificial or natural carbon removal efforts in the equations is another issue that generated fierce debate at the meeting.
As the country that has released the biggest amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since industrialization, the United States has pushed back strongly against the notion of historic responsibility for climate change.
Story was adapted from AP.
