Experts work on UN climate report amid US pushback

PARIS

Some 600 experts gather outside Paris on Monday to start work on the next major U.N. climate report, as the international consensus on global warming is challenged by climate change-sceptic U.S. President Donald Trump.

The previous report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2023, had warned that the world was on track to breach the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold by 2030.

The U.N. now says the planet is set to breach the limit earlier than feared, a line that, if crossed, could unleash devastating storms, floods and droughts.

Experts from more than 100 countries are meeting in a skyscraper in Saint-Denis for five days, launching a process that will culminate with the IPCC's Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), due to be published in 2028 or 2029.

It brings together lead authors of the report in a single venue for the first time, in an effort to tackle interdisciplinary climate questions.

Their work could face hurdles in the face of a U.S. administration whose president called climate change the "greatest con job ever" and a "hoax" during a speech at the U.N. in September.

The IPCC operates by consensus.

"If any country opposes the text, the report cannot be approved. Every country has a sort of veto," climate scientist Robert Vautard said.

There already appears to be disagreements over the timing of the next report's publication.

A group called the High Ambition Coalition, which includes EU countries and developing nations vulnerable to climate change, wants the assessment to come out in 2028.

But a group of emerging economies and major fossil fuel-producing countries say more time is needed and are advocating for 2029.