The UN recently unveiled its largestever scientific assessment on the dire state of the environment, but a crucial summary of its findings was torpedoed as nations feuded over fossil fuels.
the dispute over the Global Environment Outlook echoes a growing trend in consensusbased negotiations where oil-producing countries in particular are frustrating efforts to address pollution from fossil fuels and plastic.
the UN Environment Program (UNEP) said it was the first time that countries had failed to produce a politicallynegotiated summary of the mammoth report, which is published roughly every five years and involves hundreds of scientists. Since first being published in 1997, UNEP’s flagship outlook reports have been accompanied by a summary for policymakers: a political statement, negotiated line by line, that distils the science into plain language for governments.
under United Nations rules, this can only be approved by consensus as it serves as a collective understanding of the latest science in a way policy leaders can act upon. But at a five-day meeting in late October to approve the summary, sharp divisions over the text made consensus impossible.