UN environment report ‘hijacked’ over fossil fuels

The co-chair told the BBC that a key UN report on the state of the global environment had been “hijacked” by the US and other countries that did not want to subscribe to scientific findings.

The Global Environmental Outlook, the result of a six-year study, attributes climate change, nature loss and pollution to unsustainable consumption by people living in rich and developing economies.

He warns of a “terrible future” for millions of people unless there is a rapid move away from coal, oil, gas and fossil fuel subsidies.

But at a meeting with government representatives to agree on the findings, the United States and its allies said they could not accept a summary of the report’s conclusions.

The report was now published without a summary and without the support of governments, as scientists were reluctant to dilute or modify their findings, weakening the report’s impact.

Researchers say objections to this new report reflect similar concerns voiced by countries at the recent COP30 talks.

The BBC has approached relevant parts of the US government for comment.

Published every six or seven years, the Global Environmental Outlook is a major scientific analysis of the major threats to the planet.

The normal practice of such studies, developed under the auspices of the UN, is for the key conclusions and recommendations to be agreed verbatim with governments and published as a “summary for policy makers”.

These summaries are seen as critical because they show that governments agree with the science and are ready to act on the findings.

But this new version of the Global Environmental Outlook does not include such a summary, because writers and political representatives of nearly 70 countries were unable to reach a consensus at a “stormy” meeting in Nairobi in October.

The report, compiled by nearly 300 scientists around the world, suggests that the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the energy we consume involve the highly unsustainable extraction of resources.

To address related problems such as climate change, pollution, and loss of nature and biodiversity, the report includes several recommendations, including a rapid transition away from coal, oil and gas, and a major reduction in subsidies for agriculture and fossil fuels.

The authors acknowledge that such actions would increase prices for consumers.

But this short-term pain will bring long-term economic benefits around the world, the report says.

These strong measures, especially on fossil fuels and plastics, were too much for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia, among others, in the approval meeting, which generally operated by consensus.

Professor Sir Robert Watson told BBC News: “To be honest, a small number of countries have basically hijacked the process.”

“The US decided not to attend the meeting at all. They eventually attended via teleconference and expressed disagreement with most of the report. This means they did not agree with anything we said about climate change, biodiversity, fossil fuels, plastics and subsidies.”

Sir Robert is one of the world’s most respected scientific voices. He is a former chief scientist at the UK’s environment department and has also chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and works for the World Bank and NASA.

But he has had disagreements with the United States in the past and criticized their decision to leave the Kyoto Protocol, an earlier climate agreement, when he was president of the IPCC.

He was removed from that position in 2002 after lobbying by President George W. Bush’s administration.

Others who attended the meeting agreed that the actions of the United States and other countries had “derailed” the process.

One of the lead authors of the report, Dr. “I thought we were past the point of realizing that when you burn oil, this big, thick black stuff comes out and it’s probably not good, especially when you try to inhale it,” David Broadstock said.

“It’s pretty obvious, but we still see parties wanting to pursue increasing scale of production of this sort of thing,” he told BBC News.

Since taking office, President Trump has sought to increase fossil fuel production and roll back U.S. commitments to fight climate change, and has called for the country to become a global energy superpower with cheap and reliable resources.

He also tried to get U.S. courts to refute the idea that carbon dioxide poses a danger to public health. His government has also continued efforts to restrict or limit the efforts of international organizations set out to combat warming.

This year efforts were seen international plastic negotiations-most international maritime organization and during COP30 Defamating language that states that climate change is a major problem that requires the world to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels.

The dispute over the Global Environmental Outlook report will raise concerns about future negotiations for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports; because these studies are seen as the basis of global efforts to limit global warming.