Reissued on 13 August 2020 to include the role of ex-officio members in the Core Writing Team.
Reissued on 22 July 2020 to correct the title of Working Group II.
GENEVA, July 21 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has announced the Core Writing Team that will prepare the Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) – the document that will integrate all the IPCC reports in the current assessment cycle.
The list of 30 Core Writing Team authors and 9 Review Editors can be found here. The CWT will also include ex-officio members comprising the Chair, the IPCC Vice-Chairs, the Working Group Co-Chairs, the Heads of the Working Group and Synthesis Report Technical Support Units, and the Secretary of the IPCC.
The members of the Core Writing Team were selected by the IPCC Bureau, from the author teams of the three Working Group contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC, reflecting the balance in geographical distribution, gender, and representative of a range of expertise.
“The biggest simultaneous challenge and opportunity for the Sixth Assessment Report Synthesis Report is the massive increase in public awareness of climate change since the Fifth Assessment Report, and the readiness of governments and other actors to address the challenge,” said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee, who will lead the preparation of the report.
“My main request to you as a member of the Core Writing Team will be to strive to go beyond listing the key findings of the Special Reports and Working Group contributions to AR6, to develop a Synthesis Report document that is a real integration of the AR6 cycle materials,” he said in a letter of welcome to the Core Writing Team members.
The Synthesis Report is due to be released in 2022, in time to inform the 2023 Global Stocktake by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when countries will review progress towards the Paris Agreement goals, including the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
For more information contact:
IPCC Press Office
Jonathan Lynn, +41 22 730 8066, e-mail: ipcc-media@wmo.int
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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. In the same year the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by the WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC. 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 II, 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.
IPCC assessments provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC assessments are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. IPCC reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency.
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.
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 was launched in August 2019, and the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate was released in September 2019.
In May 2019 the IPCC released the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, an update to the methodology used by governments to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions and removals.
The contributions of the three IPCC Working Groups to the Sixth Assessment Report are currently under preparation. The concluding Synthesis Report is due in 2022.