Hundreds of scientists struggled to find compromise wording Thursday on a landmark report set to declare that climate change is already discernible and could wreak devastation to human settlement and wildlife this century. Grouped in national delegations, the climate specialists remained huddled in a European Commission conference room late into the night, hammering out the document’s all-important summary for policy makers — a guideline for government action — only hours before its scheduled release Friday morning. Several sharp disagreements impeded progress, one Western delegate said. Whereas Europeans sought to include stronger language and hard numbers warning about the dangers of global warming, the United States favored general statements about trends, he said. ‘The Europeans want to send a strong signal. The US does not want as much quantification,’ he said during a break in the negotiations, which have been underway since Monday. China and Russia, he continued, have sought to excise some passages from the summary asserting that climate change had already had negative effects around the globe, arguing that the data in the 1,400 word main study is not solid enough to be included in the key policy document. China, which is set […]