GENEVA, March 27 – Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will meet in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, on 1-5 April 2019 to launch their work on the Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report.

More than 180 authors from more than 65 countries will come together for one week to start preparing a first draft of the report, which is due to be finalized in July 2021. The meeting is hosted by the Scottish Government.

IPCC Working Group III is responsible for assessing the mitigation of climate change – responses and solutions to the threat of dangerous climate change by reducing emissions, and enhancing sinks, of the greenhouse gases that are responsible for global warming.

For the first time, Working Group III will examine topics such as the link between consumption and behaviour and greenhouse gas emissions, and the role of innovation and technology. The report will assess the connection between short-medium actions and their compatibility with the long-term temperature goal in the Paris Agreement. It will assess mitigation options in sectors such as energy, agriculture, forestry and land use, buildings, transport and industry.

“This report will provide governments with scientific information to underpin responses to climate change in the context of sustainable development,” said Priyadarshi R. Shukla, the Co-Chair of Working Group III from India.

“Our ambition is to equip governments with the information they need to act now, keeping in mind the goals of the Paris Agreement and national ambitions to achieve net zero emissions,” said Jim Skea, the Co-Chair of Working Group III from Scotland/UK.

The agreed outline of the report can be found on the IPCC website at https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/AR6_WGIII_outlines_P46.pdf.

The list of authors of the report can be found on the IPCC website at https://archive.ipcc.ch/report/authors/report.authors.php?q=37&p=&p .

Each of the three IPCC Working Groups will release their contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report in 2021. A Synthesis Report in 2022 will integrate them together with the three special reports that the IPCC is producing in the current assessment cycle.

 

Media briefing

Monday, 1 April 2019, 8:00 – 8:30 a.m.

John McIntyre Conference Centre (JMCC), 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh

Media are [also] invited to attend the opening ceremony on Monday 1 April at 9:00–9.45 a.m.at the John McIntyre Conference Centre, (JMCC), 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh

 

Outreach event (open to media)

Panel discussion hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation on “Climate Action in Small Countries and Regions”

Wednesday 3 April, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George Square, Edinburgh (registration through ECCI necessary)

 

For more information contact:

IPCC Working Group III Technical Support Unit

Geninha Lisboa, e-mail: m.gabao-lisboa@imperial.ac.uk

 

IPCC Press Office

Jonathan Lynn, +41 22 730 8066, e-mail: ipcc-media@wmo.int

 

Notes for editors

About the IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. It has 195 member states.

Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, IPCC scientists volunteer their time to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks.

The IPCC has three working groups: Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group I, dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III, dealing with the mitigation of climate change. It also has a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals.

About the Sixth Assessment Cycle

Comprehensive scientific assessment reports are published every 6 to 7 years; the latest, the Fifth Assessment Report, was completed in 2014, and provided the main scientific input to the Paris Agreement, which aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5ºC.

At its 41st Session in February 2015, the IPCC decided to produce a Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). At its 42nd Session in October 2015 it elected a new Bureau that would oversee the work on this report and Special Reports to be produced in the assessment cycle. At its 43rd Session in April 2016, it decided to produce three Special Reports, a Methodology Report and AR6.

The IPCC also publishes special reports on more specific issues between assessment reports.

Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty was launched in October 2018

Climate Change and Land, an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, is due to be completed in August 2019

The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is due to be finalized in September 2018.

The IPCC is also currently preparing the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, for completion in May 2019.

The contributions of the three IPCC Working Groups to the Sixth Assessment Report will be finalized in 2021. The concluding Synthesis Report is due in 2022.

For more information visit www.ipcc.ch.