{"id":5584,"date":"2025-12-11T12:50:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T12:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.powershiftafrica.org\/in-the-news\/exposed-how-the-us-hijacked-a-un-climate-report"},"modified":"2026-10-28T08:53:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T08:53:29","slug":"exposed-how-the-us-hijacked-a-un-climate-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/in-the-news\/exposed-how-the-us-hijacked-a-un-climate-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Exposed: How the US hijacked a UN climate report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Shocking details have emerged on how the US and allies deliberately scuttled plans to adopt a key UN report on the state of the global environment, citing its \u2018\u2018uncomfortable\u2019\u2019 scientific findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report, titled \u2018\u2018A Future we Choose\u2019\u2019<\/strong>, warns that following current fossil fuel-powered development pathways will bring \u2018\u2018catastrophic climate change\u2019\u2019, devastate nature and biodiversity and \u2018\u2018debilitating land degradation and desertification.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Global Environment Outlook 7<\/span><\/a> report is a product of six years of work by scientists that connects climate change, nature loss, and pollution to unsustainable consumption by people living in wealthy nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Robert Watson, who co-chaired the development of the report, said the US skipped a meeting in Nairobi in October attended by scientists and political representatives for its adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018At the very end, they joined by teleconference and basically made a statement that they could not agree with most of the report,\u2019\u2019<\/em><\/strong> Sir Watson told the BBC, adding, \u2018\u2018This means they didn\u2019t agree with anything we said on climate change, biodiversity, fossil fuels, plastics, and subsidies.\u2019\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even as the US and allies rejected a summary of its conclusions, scientists stuck to their guns, refusing to \u2018\u2018water down or change their findings\u2019\u2019 in the report the UN has described as the \u2018\u2018most comprehensive assessment of the global environment ever undertaken.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has now been published with neither a summary nor the support of world governments, a departure from practice for such important studies. Analysts are now warning that this move could weaken the report\u2019s impact, particularly coming at a time when scrutiny on climate multilateralism and its ability to mobilise and deliver global action is intensifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Familiar American Mischief\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another lead author of the report, Dr David Broadstock, concurs on the US\u2019s mischief. \u2018\u2018We\u2019re still seeing parties wanting to pursue the increasing scale of production of [oil],\u2019\u2019<\/em><\/strong> he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continued extraction and consumption of fossil fuels would also trigger \u2018\u2018lingering deadly pollution\u2019\u2019 with horrendous costs to people, planet, and economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since his return to the White House earlier this year, US President Donald Trump has been categorical about his administration\u2019s intentions to ramp up the production of oil, going against climate science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions, and they\u2019re heading down a path of total destruction,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> President Trump said during the UN General Assembly in New York in September, dismissing global warming as a con job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018If you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail,\u2019\u2019<\/em><\/strong> Trump said, adding to his abrasive inauguration remarks in January that the US would continue to drill oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2018We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have \u2014 the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth \u2014 and we are going to use it.\u202f We\u2019ll use it,\u2019\u2019<\/em><\/strong> said Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US skipped COP30 climate talks in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, in November and has begun the process to formally exit the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What the Report Recommends<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authored by 300 scientists from around the world, the report finds that \u2018\u2018investing in a stable climate, healthy nature and land, and a pollution-free planet\u2019\u2019 can deliver trillions of dollars each year in additional global GDP. It further says climate-compatible development would help to \u2018\u2018avoid millions of deaths\u2019\u2019 while lifting \u2018\u2018hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty\u2019\u2019 in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It lays out \u2018\u2018another better path\u2019\u2019 of development that involves \u2018\u2018whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches\u2019\u2019 to transform the systems of economy and finance, materials and waste, energy, food, and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These approaches, the report says, are backed by behavioural and sociocultural shifts, including respect for Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge. While acknowledging the up-front costs, the report warns that the \u2018\u2018economic cost of inaction is much higher\u2019\u2019 and that the long-term return on investing in transformation is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2050, \u2018\u2018the global macroeconomic benefits will start to appear\u2019\u2019 with the world economy growing by US$20 trillion per year in the next 45 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To deliver a better future for humanity, the planet, and all life forms, the report calls on world leaders and policymakers to \u2018\u2018acknowledge the urgency of the global environmental crises\u2019\u2019 by accelerating actions and the momentum built in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executive director of UNEP Inger Andersen acknowledges that change, especially on the scale required to save the planet, is always difficult. \u2018\u2018But change we must. There are two futures ahead of humanity. Let us choose the right one.\u2019\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shocking details have emerged on how the US and allies deliberately scuttled plans to adopt a key UN report on the state of the global environment, citing its \u2018\u2018uncomfortable\u2019\u2019 scientific findings. The report, titled \u2018\u2018A Future we Choose\u2019\u2019 , warns that following current fossil fuel-powered development pathways will bring \u2018\u2018catastrophic climate change\u2019\u2019, devastate nature and biodiversity and \u2018\u2018debilitating land degradation and desertification.\u2019\u2019<\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":5585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,25],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-5584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news","tag-climate-finance","tag-energy-transition"],"acf":{"url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9461,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions\/9461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=5584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}