As bad as it is, IPCC Report likely understates reality

Saudi Arabia, India, China, (Australia) and a few other countries have sought to make changes that would weaken the final warnings.

Students protest in Toulouse, France, on 25 March, about government inaction on climate change. Photograph: Alain Pitton/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock / from the article.

by Fiona Harvey, 02/24/2022 in The Guardian

Dire warning on climate change ‘is being ignored’ amid war and economic turmoil: The third segment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is being overshadowed, just like the previous one

Saudi Arabia, India, China and a few other countries have sought to make changes that would weaken the final warnings, the Observer understands. Some governments are anxious to avoid policy advice such as cutting subsidies to fossil fuels, even though these are widely espoused by leading authorities.This process of refinement – which has also been a complaint in the previous chapters of the IPCC assessment – is defended by some, as producing a document that all governments must “own”, as they have all had input. But many scientists are growing increasingly f

rustrated, as it produces a conservative and sometimes watered down document that many feel does not reflect the urgency and shocking nature of the threat.

Read the complete article….

Featured image: An earlier report streamed to a press conference at the Swiss Academy of Sciences in Bern last August. Photograph: Alessandro Della Valle/EPA / from the article.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.