Greenpeace investigative team announced this week that oil, coal, beef and animal feed producing countries have been lobbying to tone down a major United Nations climate report.
According to Greenpeace, fossil fuel producers, including Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan and Iran, want the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to not recommend phasing out fossil fuels. Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members second that.
And then there are the meat and dairy kingpins like Brazil and Argentina, who don’t appreciate the UN connecting plant-based diets with climate benefits. In fact, the draft report of the IPCC working group had more than 32,000 comments by corporations, governments and other concerned parties, according to Greenpeace.
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“These comments show the tactics some countries are willing to adopt to obstruct and delay action to cut emissions,” said Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London, as reported by Unearthed. “Like most scientists, I’m uncomfortable with leaks of draft reports, as in an ideal world the scientists writing these reports should be able to do their job in peace. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and with emissions still increasing, the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
So, do these comments have any weight? Not necessarily. According to Mark Maslin, an earth system science professor at University College London, countries always like to lobby for their interests on IPCC climate change reports.
“But it has no effect on the reports,” said Maslin, as reported by The Guardian. “Scientists, social scientists and economists that work on these reports are led by the evidence and what is best for the world and all of its peoples. This is why the public and politicians all around the world trust scientists and the IPCC reports as they know they will not be influenced by petty politics.”
Let’s hope he’s right.
Via The Guardian
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