IPCC at the Bonn Climate Conference

GENEVA, June 2 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be taking an active part in the upcoming 58th session of the Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Set in Bonn from 5 to 15 June, the meeting is also known as the Bonn Climate Conference.   

On the first day of the conference, the recently released Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report will be presented by the IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee at a Special Event of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) starting at 15.00. Earlier that day, the IPCC Secretary Abdallah Mokssit will address the opening plenary of the 58th Session of SBSTA. 

Throughout the conference, the IPCC will focus on delivering the main findings of the Synthesis Report and of the entire sixth assessment cycle. These efforts will also include contributions to the Global Stocktake Technical Dialogues taking place during the conference. The Technical Dialogues are a prelude to the first Global Stocktake scheduled to take place at this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP28) meetings in Dubai in December. They are scheduled to start at 10.00 am on 6 June and will run till 13 June.

An in-session workshop on common metrics, scheduled to start at 10.00 am on 7 June, will also be addressed by the IPCC Chair. Objectives of the workshop include dissemination of the key findings on emission metrics in IPCC´s Sixth Assessment Report and identification of the benefits and shortcomings of the use of different metrics.

Experts from all three Working Groups of the IPCC will deliver vital contributions through the Research Dialogue scheduled to kick-off on 8 June.

The IPCC will also host two side events. On 6 June IPCC’s Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) together with the Secretariat of the UNFCCC will present the new version of the IPCC Inventory Software. The software works with the UNFCCC reporting tool for Common Reporting Tables of national greenhouse gas inventories. The TFI will have a dedicated space providing an opportunity to learn about its activities, including the demonstration and testing of the new generation of inventory software, and the work of the IPCC in general.

On 9 June the IPCC will host a side event on the use of scenarios in the Sixth Assessment Report and future assessments. The event will unpack the outcomes and recommendations of the related IPCC scientific workshop held in April this year.

IPCC experts will also be taking part in other side events and activities.

Further details about the events in this media advisory and other activities with IPCC involvement, including how to follow the relevant livestreams, will be shared here.

For interview requests, please email ipcc-media@wmo.int.

For more information contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int
Andrej Mahecic, +41 22 730 8516 or 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 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 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 and the Synthesis Report on 20 March 2023.

The Synthesis Report to the Sixth Assessment Report, distills and integrates the findings of the three Working Group assessments as well as the three Special Reports released in 2018 and 2019.

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. 

For more information visit www.ipcc.ch.

The website includes outreach materials including 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.