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Climate science on 1.5C erased at UN talks as US and Saudis step in
(Climate Change News, 8 Dec 2018) In a moment of drama in Poland, countries closed ranks against a push by oil producers to water down recognition of the UN’s report on the impacts of 1.5C warming.
Four big oil and gas producers blocked UN climate talks from welcoming the most influential climate science report in years, as a meeting in Poland descended into acrimony on Saturday.
By failing to reach agreement after two and half hours of emotional negotiations, delegates in Katowice set the scene for a political fight next week over the importance of the UN’s landmark scientific report on the effects of a 1.5C rise in the global temperature.
The battle, halfway through a fortnight of Cop24 negotiations, was over two words: “note” or “welcome”.
Saudi Arabia, the US, Kuwait and Russia said it was enough for the members of the UN climate convention (the UNFCCC) to “note” the findings.
But poor and undeveloped countries, small island states, Europeans and many others called to change the wording to “welcome” the study – noting that they had commissioned it when they reached the Paris climate agreement in 2015.
“This is not a choice between one word and another,” Rueanna Haynes, a delegate for St Kitts and Nevis, told the plenary. “This is us, as the UNFCCC, being in a position to welcome a report that we requested, that we invited [scientists] to prepare. So it seems to me that if there is anything ludicrous about the discussion that is taking place, it is that we in this body are not in a position to welcome the report.”
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Climate Change News, 8 Dec 2018: Climate science on 1.5C erased at UN talks as US and Saudis step in
