Documents called Greenpeace Played on To the BBC Show how countries are trying to influence a leading UN climate report. While more than 32,000 comments are aimed at improving the quality of the report, according to the British broadcaster, some countries are diluting or removing unwanted passages from the final text.

For example, Saudi Arabia and Australia are arguing against the decision to phase out the use of fossil fuels as much as possible. Australia, a major exporter of coal, should remove the recommendation to close coal power plants. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia wants to get rid of warnings about fossil fuels.

OPEC and Norway, which export a lot of oil, believe the report should be written very positively about the potential for CO2 storage underground. This technique is mentioned in the first edition, but the authors immediately notice that there is still uncertainty about its applicability.

Consensus

The UN Climate Working Group (IPC) tells the IPCC that the views of governments and organizations are crucial to gaining a scientific consensus on the report. The organization also emphasizes that the authors of the report are not obliged to accept comments.

Every few years, the IPCC brings together all scientific knowledge about climate change and makes recommendations on how to deal with it. The Sixth IPCC Report, coming up next year, will be crucial for the COP26 International Climate Conference to be held in Glasgow next month.

A previously released area report already showed that climate change is happening at an unprecedented rate in August.

Meat-free Monday

Fossil fuel exporters are not the only ones commenting on the text. Major meat exporters such as Brazil and Argentina criticize the proposal to eat vegetarian once a week Meat-free Monday. According to the draft text, more plant-based foods can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent for Western food.

Argentina warns against generalization and says there are opportunities to control emissions without abandoning meat. Brazil does not write that a vegetarian diet should be the best.

Many Eastern European countries are demanding the use of more nuclear energy to solve climate problems. India believes that the climate report is biased against this form of energy.