The world’s climate scientists met for a week in Addis Ababa. On Friday the meeting was suspended with no firm date for the next global assessment of climate science, and Cop31 opens in less than a month.
The IPCC’s seventh assessment report, AR7, was expected in 2028, seven years after the last one in 2021. A loose group of governments led by Saudi Arabia, Russia and India, with China and Kenya, wants it pushed to 2029 or later, claiming that developed countries dominate climate science and have skewed its findings.
The timing matters. Under the 2015 Paris agreement, 2028 is the year of the second global stocktake, when national emission pledges are checked against the 1.5C limit, with the next round due at Cop33. Saudi Arabia, which has its oil company’s employees on IPCC committees, has tried to water down these reports before.
Most of AR7’s science is already published and under review. 117 scientists, one of them from India, have vowed to keep working.
The Modi government should fund the South’s scientists, not stand guard for the oil states.
Source: The Guardian, 20 October 2026 — https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/20/countries-pushing-vital-global-climate-report-delayed
