Inside the deadlock at the world's top climate science body

The decision was expected to take minutes. But after nearly three years of debate, members of the world’s leading authority on climate change still can’t agree on a timeline to publish its next review of the latest science on the warming planet.



Such assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have informed every major United Nations climate agreement for three decades.



But the impasse over publication dates could leave countries to decide the next phase of action without consensus on critical issues – including the extent to which some global warming might be reversible – according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former IPCC scientists, government negotiators and meeting observers.



The dispute reflects deep rifts between wealthy industrialized nations, major emerging economies and poorer nations over how to respond to rapidly warming temperatures and how much of that burden should be shouldered by different countries.