A major UN report examining the interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and unsustainable resource use has been released without government endorsement after negotiations with political representatives broke down. The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) produced by nearly 300 scientists over six years normally includes a “summary for policymakers,” agreed line-by-line with governments.
But at a tense meeting in Nairobi, representatives from around 70 countries failed to reach consensus, leaving the report without the political seal of approval that typically drives action.
The document warns of a “dire future” for millions unless the world rapidly shifts away from coal, oil and gas, and significantly cuts subsidies for both fossil fuels and agriculture. However, several governments objected to these conclusions, weakening the report’s immediate influence.
Scientists Refuse to Dilute the Findings
The report links the environmental crisis to excessive consumption patterns in wealthy and emerging economies from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and the energy we use. It calls for transformative changes:
- A rapid phase-out of fossil fuels.
- Major reductions in harmful subsidies.
- System-wide shifts in production and consumption.
Those measures, the authors acknowledge, could raise short-term consumer prices but would bring “long-term economic benefits” globally.
Scientific leads refused to soften these conclusions despite government pushback. As a result, the GEO was released without its usual summary, severely limiting its political reach.
A Small Group of Countries “Hijacked the Process”
Prof Sir Robert Watson, co-chair of the assessment and one of the world’s most respected environmental scientists, said a small number of nations including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia derailed the negotiations. “A small number of countries basically just hijacked the process,” he said.
According to Watson, the U.S. did not attend the meeting in person and later joined briefly by teleconference to declare it could not agree with major elements of the science, including findings on climate change, biodiversity, fossil fuels, plastics and subsidies.
Watson has clashed with the U.S. government before; he was removed as IPCC chair in 2002 following lobbying by the Bush administration after publicly criticising U.S. climate policy.
Other participants in Nairobi confirmed that objections from the same group of countries “derailed” the approval process.
Growing Resistance to Climate Language on the Global Stage
Dr David Broadstock, one of the report’s lead authors, said it was extraordinary to see governments still disputing basic scientific truths about fossil fuels. “I thought we had gone beyond the point of recognising that when you burn oil… it probably isn’t good, especially when you try and breathe it in,” he said.
He noted that some nations continue pursuing fossil fuel expansion despite the clear evidence presented.
The pushback mirrors similar disputes at COP30, at recent UN maritime negotiations, and during international talks on plastic pollution all of which saw efforts to remove or weaken language requiring rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has sought to boost domestic fossil fuel production, limit international climate cooperation and challenge the scientific basis for regulating carbon dioxide as a threat to public health.
Implications for Future Climate Science Negotiations
The failure to agree on even a summary document has raised concerns about the next round of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) negotiations, which rely on government consensus to finalise their assessments.
The GEO is issued every six or seven years and is considered one of the most comprehensive analyses of global environmental threats. Without government endorsement, its warnings may carry less immediate political weight even as the scientific evidence behind them grows stronger.
Researchers say the episode highlights a widening gap between scientific urgency and political willingness to acknowledge the scale of environmental breakdown.
Report Still Standing on Its Science
Despite the turmoil, the report remains a critical scientific statement about the planet’s condition. Its authors emphasise that environmental crises are interconnected and require coordinated global action. They also argue that delaying such action will only increase long-term economic, social and ecological costs.
But without the customary summary for policymakers, the responsibility now falls to governments, civil society and international institutions to absorb and act on the findings even without formal endorsement.
References:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w9ge93w9po
