Earlier, an argument about climate science almost took the attention away from the negotiations.
Sultan al-Jaber, the leader of COP28, changed his mind about saying there is no scientific reason to stop using fossil fuels to keep the global temperature from rising too much.
I found Prof Jean-Pascal van Ypersele in the main hall. He used to be the second leader of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the top authority on climate science worldwide.
This is his 27th meeting about the world’s climate at the UN. He has seen many agreements made and then forgotten.
“In 21 pages, there are 100 times that words like acknowledging, noting, recognizing are used. ” “but the word ‘decide’ is only there four times,” he says.
“The air doesn’t get it. ” It only knows about actual emissions, actual cuts, or actual carbon absorption.
If governments agree on this draft at COP, the world will keep getting hotter because emissions won’t be reduced enough.
More update on this story soon…