Firemen use a hose to extinguish a fire near Le Luc, southern France, Aug. 17, 2021. | Daniel Cole/AP
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A leak of thousands of documents has this week revealed some of the world’s heavyweight countries in fossil fuel and meat production asking the United Nations to downplay these industries’ contribution to the climate crisis.
On top of this, some wealthy nations were seen pushing back on recommendations to help finance poorer countries in mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis.
This comes just days before the start of the UN Climate Change Conference — known as COP26 — a crucial event that has been described as the last best chance for countries to pull up their socks and effectively tackle climate change.
The documents, seen by investigative journalists at Greenpeace’s Unearthed and the BBC, are in fact thousands of comments and recommendations by countries for the UN to make changes to a soon-to-be-released report on the world’s climate mitigation options.
Some countries can be seen asking for changes to be made to the report to water down statements about the urgent scaling-down needed on meat production and the use of fossil fuels. The BBC also reports that some wealthy countries questioned the need to financially assist poorer nations with investments into green technologies.
Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan, Norway, China, and Iran all had representatives commenting on the draft report and pushing back against statements on the need to move away from fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The document leak also includes controversial commentary from organizations and institutions similarly remarking that the rapid reduction of fossil fuel consumption is unnecessary.