Zoe Sagalow, special to wtop.com
WASHINGTON – Developing countries like China and India “have been responsible for most increases” in greenhouse gas emissions in the past few decades. But that information is hidden from United Nations policymakers, effectively tying their hands from crafting targeted policies that would reduce pollution, according to a lead author for a UN climate change working group.
Giovanni Baiocchi, an applied environmental economist and University of Maryland geographical sciences associate professor, says important information is intentionally being left out of summarized reports for United Nations policymakers.
He says this prevents the panel on climate change from coming up with focused policies that would tell individual countries, like China and India, or groups of countries what they can do to adapt to climate change. He says the panel’s current policies aren’t sufficient.
Baiocchi and others involved wrote a series of articles in Science magazine’s July issue about the April meeting of the panel on climate change trying to raise awareness of these concerns and determine how to make future work more productive.
“What is clear is that there are some political reasons that prevent… several countries
