Countries endorse the "Hard Facts" report on climate change

 Governments on Sunday approved a major new United Nations report on climate change, after it was held up by a battle between rich and developing countries over emissions targets and financial aid for vulnerable countries.

 What is the purpose of the report?

• The report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is intended as a cover for the massive amounts of research on global warming that have been collected since the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
• The United Nations plans to release the report during a press conference early Monday afternoon.
• The unusual process of getting states to sign off on a scientific report is intended to ensure that governments accept its findings as official advice on which to base their actions.

Guterres: There is very little time left

• At the outset of the meeting, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on government delegates to present "hard and concrete facts" to deliver the message that there is little time left for the world to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, when the global average has already risen. Global temperatures have increased by 1.1°C since the 19th century.
• Guterres insisted that the "target of 1.5 is still possible, with rapid and deep emissions reductions in all sectors of the global economy".

thorny issues during the last meeting

•  How to determine which developing countries are considered at risk, which makes them eligible to receive money from the "loss and damage" fund approved at recent UN climate talks in Egypt.
• Delegates wrangled over the figures for how much greenhouse gas emissions should be cut in the coming years, and how to include efforts to remove artificial or natural carbon in the equations.
•  As the country that has released the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since industrialization, the United States has strongly opposed the notion of "historic responsibility" for climate change.