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Nations agree landmark UN climate report after marathon talks
GENEVA, Aug 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Negotiators from 195 countries on
Wednesday finalised the most comprehensive scientific assessment yet of how
the land we live off affects climate change, after marathon talks in Geneva,
sources told AFP.
The land use report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), running over 1,000 pages compiled by 108 scientists
drawing from thousands of data points, is expected to spell out the stark
choices facing a warming planet with a growing, hungry population.
Experts from around the world have spent the last few days poring over the
report’s summary for policymakers — a concise run-down of the science
containing a range of possible solutions and trade-offs.
A key sticking point during negotiations was the role of bioenergy — power
derived from burning plant matter — and to what extent such schemes should
be rolled out to combat climate change.
Bioenergy, and other largely untested geo-engineering initiatives, will
require an enormous amount of land to achieve the emissions reductions needed
to limit temperature rises to 1.5C (2.6 Farenheit) above pre-industrial
levels.
With the world’s population expected to rise to 10 billion by mid-century,
there are fears there is simply not enough land to both sustainably feed
people and mitigate climate change.
Sources close to the talks in Geneva said countries with large forest
cover, including Canada, Brazil, Sweden and Norway, had pushed for a greater
role for bioenergy in climate planning, something nations already facing
desertification and drought pushed back on.
The final summary for policymakers will be made public on Thursday and is
expected to highlight food inequality on a global scale, with two billion
adults overweight or obese sharing a planet with 820 million suffering
chronic hunger.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1902 hrs