Fact sheet

The IPCC is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations to provide the world with a clear, balanced view of the present state of understanding of climate change.

The IPCC does not conduct research on its own. Its core activity is to review and assess the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to the understanding of climate change.

The IPCC was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme and is open to all their member countries.

The IPCC provides at regular intervals comprehensive, rigorously documented Assessment Reports that summarize the current knowledge and future projections of climate change (CC).

"Climate Change 2007" is the 4th IPCC's Assessment Report (AR4). The previous ones were published in 1990; 1995 and 2001. The Third Assessment Report of 2001 is entirely available online at http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/.

"Climate Change 2007"

The IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4) consists of four volumes that will be released in the course of 2007. Compared to the 2001 report, the AR4 pays greater attention to the integration of climate change with sustainable development and the inter-relationships between mitigation and adaptation. Specific attention is given to regional issues, uncertainty & risk, technology, climate change & water.

Here are the release dates:

February 2 (Paris) - "The Physical Science Basis"
April 6 (Brussels) - "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability"
May 4 (Bangkok) - "Mitigation of Climate Change"
November 16 (Valencia) "The Synthesis Report"

Working Group I Report, "The physical science basis", assesses the current state of knowledge about the natural and human drivers of climate change, reflecting the progress of the climate change science in the observation of the atmosphere, the Earth's surface and oceans. It provides a paleoclimatic perspective and evaluates future projections of climate change. Main topics include changes in atmospheric composition, observation of various climate parameters, coupling between changes in climate and biogeochemistry, evaluation of models and attribution of climate change.

Working Group II Report addresses "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability": It provides a detailed analysis of observed changes in natural and human systems and the relationship between those observed changes and climate change, as well as a detailed assessment of projected future vulnerability, impacts, and response measures to adapt to climatic changes for main sectors and regions.

Working Group III Report on "Mitigation of climate change" analyses mitigation options for the main sectors in the near term, addressing also cross sectorial matters such as synergies, co-benefits, trade-offs, and links with other policy objectives. It also provides information on long term mitigation strategies, for various stabilization levels, paying special attention to implications of different short-term strategies for achieving long-term goals.

AR4 "Synthesis Report" is an overall scientific view on climate change that integrates and synthesizes all information from the three volumes around 6 topics areas.

IPCC Assessment Reports

IPCC reports are written by teams of authors, nominated by governments and international organizations. They come from universities, research centres, business and environmental associations from all over the world. More than 800 contributing authors and more than 450 lead authors were involved in the writing of the AR4.

Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete assessment of current information. More than 2.500 scientific expert reviewers were involved in the two-stage scientific and technical review process of the AR4.

For the first review, the drafts are circulated to specialists with significant expertise and publications in the field. A wide circulation process ensures contributions from independent experts in all regions of the world and all relevant disciplines. Revised drafts are distributed for the second review to governments and to all authors and expert reviewers. Governments and expert reviewers can provide comments on the accuracy and completeness of the scientific/technical/socio-economic content and the overall balance of the drafts. Differing views for which there is significant scientific or technical support are clearly reflected in the final documents.

Full reports are accepted during the Working Group's plenary, while for each report a Summary for Policymakers is approved line by line. The SPM therefore represents the point of agreement: participating governments acknowledge that there i enough scientific evidence worldwide to support the document's statements. Thanks to the depth of its scientific work and to the value of its intergovernmental nature, IPCC work is very much policy relevant. Its assessment reports played a decisive role in inducing governments to adopt the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. However, IPCC is neutral with respect to policy and its assessment reports are not policy prescriptive.