A coalition led by Saudi Arabia attempted to mask their contribution to rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions during discussions at the UN’s most recent climate science meeting.
That’s the charge laid by John Broome, a British philosopher and economist at Oxford University, and contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report.
He’s not the first to make these accusations – that prize goes to Giovanni Baiocchi, an economist at the University of Maryland.
But Broome is the first to offer a compelling narrative of how the four–day Berlin meeting of IPCC Working Group 3 scientists in April unfolded.
In a detailed blog published on May 20 he says the ‘Summary for Policymakers’, a concise document that pulls together thousands of pages of work, was “mutilated” by government officials.
“The degree of compression in the SPM meant that every sentence counts. In drafting it, we authors each found ourselves defending our favourite sentences,” Broome writes.
Broome contends that in the early hours of April 12, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia insisted that all figures showing emissions of greenhouse gas from countries classified by their “income group” were deleted. Other reports indicate China was also part of this push. ……..
It should be stressed the SPM is the only part of the IPCC texts that receives this level of political interrogation or interference from governments – perhaps because they know it’s the only part most policymakers will read.
This can then form the basis of various negotiating positions at UN climate talks, which are heating up as a global emissions reduction deal scheduled to be signed off in December 2015 draws close.