Live stream of IPCC press conference to launch the Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report

14.00 CET on 20 March 2023

INTERLAKEN (SWITZERLAND), March 18 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will hold a hybrid press conference to present the Summary for Policymakers of Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report, subject to approval by the Panel. The press conference is scheduled to start at 14.00 CET (13.00 GMT) on Monday, 20 March 2023.

It will follow the closure of the 58th Session of the IPCC that began on 13 March. The meeting is considering the Synthesis Report to the Sixth Assessment Report (Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report). The Synthesis Report – the final installment of IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report – integrates and summarizes the findings of the six reports released by IPCC during the current cycle which began in 2015. This includes three Special Reports and the three IPCC Working Group contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report.

The press conference will be streamed live on the IPCC YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/SYRPRcfe.

It will also be streamed live on UN Web TV.

Accredited journalists will receive e-mail alerts about embargo materials once they are available and details on how to submit questions for the speakers at the press conference.

Note for reporters and editors:

All IPCC press materials are strictly embargoed until 14.00 CET (Interlaken time) on 20 March 2023.

This means no use, no coverage, publication, printing, or posting on any media and digital platform (broadcast, print, online, social, etc.) before the embargo is lifted at 14.00 CET (13.00 GMT) on  20 March 2023.

For more information contact:

Email: media@ipcc.ch  
Andrej Mahecic, + 41 79 704 2459, Werani Zabula, + 41 22 730 8120

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, experts volunteer their time as IPCC authors 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 to 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 Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis was released on 9 August 2021. The Working Group II contribution, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, was released on 28 February 2022. The Working Group III contribution, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, was released on 4 April 2022.

The IPCC is currently working on the final instalment of the Sixth Assessment Report, the Synthesis Report, which will integrate the findings of the three Working Group assessments as well as the three Special Reports released in 2018 and 2019.

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. 

For more information, visit www.ipcc.ch.

The website includes outreach materials, videos about the IPCC, and video recordings from outreach events conducted as webinars or live-streamed events.

Most videos published by the IPCC can be found on our YouTube channel. 

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