UN environment report ‘hijacked’ over fossil fuels

A key UN report on the state of the global environment has been “hijacked” by the United States and other countries unwilling to accept the scientific findings, a co-chair has told the BBC.

The Global Environment Outlook, the result of six years of work, links climate change, nature loss and pollution to the unsustainable consumption of people living in rich and developing countries.

He warns of a “dire future” for millions of people unless coal, oil, gas and fossil fuel subsidies are quickly phased out.

But at a meeting with government officials to discuss the findings, the United States and its allies said they could not agree with the report's findings.

Because scientists were reluctant to soften or change their findings, the report has now been published without a summary and without the support of governments, weakening its impact.

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

The BBC has contacted relevant US government departments for comment.

The Global Environment Outlook, published every six or seven years, provides an important scientific analysis of the planet's major threats.

The usual practice of such studies, developed under the auspices of the UN, is for key findings and recommendations to be agreed verbatim by governments and published as “summaries for policymakers.”

These summaries are considered critical because they show that governments agree with the science and are willing to put the findings into practice.

But there is no such summary in the new version of the Global Environment Outlook, as the authors and political representatives from some 70 countries failed to reach a consensus at a “tumultuous” meeting in Nairobi in October.

The report, compiled by nearly 300 scientists from around the world, argues that the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the energy we consume are all linked to resource extraction in highly unsustainable ways.

To address the interconnected challenges of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, the report makes a host of recommendations, including a rapid phase-out of coal, oil and gas and massive cuts to agricultural and fossil fuel subsidies.

The authors acknowledge that such actions will lead to higher prices for consumers.

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

Those drastic measures, especially on fossil fuels and plastics, proved too much for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia, among others, to meet at the approval meeting, which is usually decided by consensus.

“Frankly, a small number of countries have simply hijacked the process,” Professor Sir Robert Watson told BBC News.

“The US decided not to attend the meeting at all. “At the very end they joined in via teleconference and essentially made a statement that they couldn't agree with most of the report, meaning they didn't agree with anything we said about climate change, biodiversity, fossil fuels, plastics and subsidies.”

Sir Robert is one of the most respected scientists in the world. He is the former Chief Scientist of the UK Department of the Environment and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and has also worked for the World Bank and NASA.

However, he has clashed with the US in the past, criticizing its decision to withdraw from an earlier climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, when he was head of the IPCC.

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

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

“I thought we had gone beyond recognizing that when you burn oil, this big, thick black stuff comes up, and that's probably not a good thing, especially when you try to inhale it,” said Dr. David Broadstock of the Lantau Group and one of the report's lead authors.

“It's pretty obvious and yet we still see parties wanting to scale up production of these things,” he told BBC News.

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

He also tried to persuade US courts to reject the idea that carbon dioxide poses a public health risk. His government has also made efforts to limit or limit the efforts of international organizations working on warming.

This year efforts have been made to international negotiations on plasticsV international maritime organization and during KS30 strike language that states that climate change is a serious problem that requires the world to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels.

The controversy over the Global Environment Outlook report will raise concerns about future negotiations on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, as the research is seen as the foundation of global efforts to limit global warming.