U.S., Other Petrostates ‘Hijack the Process’, Derail Consensus on UN Environment Report

The United Nations’ flagship report calling for a global transformation of energy and food systems was published without its key policy summary after the United States and other petrostates objected, raising concerns about the future of global climate science assessments.

“A small number of countries basically just hijacked the process, to be quite honest,” Sir Robert Watson, a leading environmental scientist, told BBC News. “The U.S. decided not to attend the meeting at all. At the very end they joined by teleconference and basically made a statement that they could not agree with most of the report, which means they didn’t agree with anything we said on climate change, biodiversity, fossil fuels, plastics, and subsidies.”

The seventh Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-7) is the latest installment of a report published every six years by the UN. This year’s GEO-7, the result of work by 287 multidisciplinary scientists from 82 countries, was the first time the report was published without a “summary for policymakers”—a key part of such publications that indicates governments’ consensus with scientists and gives the findings political weight, writes The New York Times. This time around, the U.S.—a no-show at prior meetings—opposed those conclusions, and was joined by other countries like Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

The scientists behind the report were unwilling to change their findings, so there was no consensus, and thus no summary.

That isn’t to say the report was rejected by all governments. The Guardian reports that the United Kingdom released a statement on behalf of 28 other countries, saying they witnessed “diversion attempts to question the scientific nature of this process.”

“Our delegations fully respect every state’s right to safeguard their country’s national interests and rights, but science is not negotiable.”

The GEO-7 report paints a picture of “a planet in peril” that is plagued by interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution, and waste. It argues that the environmental challenges are situated within “broader socio-economic and political landscapes” that stem from unsustainable production and consumption. The authors say transformative change is needed to address these crises, including by rapidly phasing out fossil fuels, reducing overconsumption of natural resources, and shifting towards economic systems that emphasize improving human and natural capital rather than gross domestic product.

While the report charts a possible path forward to make these changes, it also cautions against continuing on current development pathways that have already brought the planet into “uncharted territory.”

“I thought we had gone beyond the point of recognizing that when you burn oil, this big, thick black stuff comes up, and it probably isn’t good, especially when you try and breathe it in,” said Dr. David Broadstock of the Lantau Group, and one of the report’s lead authors.

“It’s kind of pretty obvious, and yet we’re still seeing parties wanting to pursue the increasing scale of production of such things,” he told BBC News.

The report calls out governments for recognizing the threats but acting at a pace and scale that has “been inadequate to date.” Its authors frame GEO-7 as a direct response to inaction that “equips policy-makers with practical guidance on designing, implementing, and governing transformative policies.”

They state: “Acknowledging political and economic constraints, financing shortfalls, misaligned policies, vested interests, educational gaps, and fragmented governance, the GEO-7 assessment report provides concrete solution pathways to overcome these barriers.”

The BBC reports that the disagreement over the GEO-7 will raise concerns about future reports, like those published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which the news outlet describes as the “bedrock of global efforts to limit global warming.”

Cover photo:  geralt/pixabay