A French News Agency has reported that the participants of the UN assessment report of SROCC have cited that Saudi Arabia is blocking the adoption of a major UN report on oceans and climate change by challenging an earlier UN assessment highlighting the need to slash carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. In 2015, about 196 countries signed the Paris Agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The agreement called for capping global warming at "well below" 2-degree Celsius, and 1.5-degree celsius. Yet the Saudis reject this statement, claim participants of 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Monaco.

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UN approves on climate change reports

As per recent reports, a major report detailing the dire impact of global warming on oceans and Earth's frozen zones was approved by the UN's 195-nation climate science body on September 24 after an all-night standoff with Saudi Arabia over wording. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) revealed in a series of tweets that the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) has been confirmed. As tweeted previously on Tuesday, the IPCC has also tweeted the details of the assessment on Wednesday. A 30-page executive summary is scheduled for release on the same day. The summary mentioned that 104 authors from 36 countries contributed to the report on climate change with about 6981 papers and 31176 comments were added up to come to the approval.

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Saudi Arabia tried to block approval: participants

Yet oil giant Saudi Arabia held up adoption of the Summary for Policy Makers - 30-odd pages, vetted line-by-line - by challenging another landmark UN assessment that highlights the need to slash carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels, said the participants. At issue was what might have been a routine reference to an October 2018 IPCC report on the feasibility of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. This very assessment detailed the stark consequences for humanity of piercing that threshold and the need for deep cuts in the use of fossil fuels. Norway, Britain, France, Canada, Chile the European Union were resisting Saudi proposals to drop any reference to the 1.5 C report, or include a reference to its alleged "shortcomings" said two other sources.

"It has been 24 hours and there has been absolutely no compromise from the Saudis. They are undermining the science underlying this report, and it is despicable. It really seems like Saudi Arabia only came to this meeting to block any language on 1.5C," participants said.

The IPCC reports conclude that carbon-heavy footprints of humanity are leading to global warming and pollution which in turn are ravaging Earth's oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale. Millions of people could be displaced under the impacts of vanishing glaciers, and expanding marine heatwaves, mentioned the draft. About 195 countries needed to sign off on the language of a 30-page Summary of IPCC for Policymakers, designed to provide leaders with objective, science-based information which was approved.

(With inputs from PTI)

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