ISTANBUL, Jan 20 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will deliver a set of reports assessing the latest climate change science during the seventh assessment cycle. More than 300 delegates from 120 governments decided on the IPCC’s scientific structure of work for the new cycle at the Panel’s 60th Plenary session, which concluded early this morning in Istanbul, Türkiye.
In deliberations during the four-day meeting, the governments agreed to produce the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report, namely the Working Group I report on the Physical Science Basis, the Working Group II report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and the Working Group III report on Mitigation of Climate Change. The Synthesis Report of the Seventh Assessment Report will be produced after the completion of the Working Group reports and released by late 2029.
The Panel decided already during the previous cycle to produce a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and a Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers. Scientists have also been asked to deliver a Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage.
In addition, a revision of the 1994 IPCC Technical Guidelines on impacts and adaptation as well as adaptation indicators, metrics and guidelines, will be developed in conjunction with the Working Group II report and published as a separate product.
“The Panel has taken a critical step in plotting the course for the entire cycle. Their decisions reflect the interest of member governments in getting policy-relevant, timely and actionable scientific information as soon as possible and providing input to the 2028 second Global Stocktake. There is a notable emphasis on adaptation to climate change,“ said IPCC Chair Jim Skea.
“Today’s decision is also a clear signal to the scientific community that the work on the new assessments of the climate change science can now begin in earnest.”
The delegates also decided on a range of budgetary and other matters related to the delivery of reports, as well as on the admission of new observer organisations and IPCC’s scholarship programme.
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For more information please contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int
Andrej Mahecic, +41 79 704 2459 or Werani Zabula, +41 22 730 8120
Notes for editors
What is 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 Seventh Assessment Cycle
Comprehensive scientific assessment reports are published every 5 to 7 years. The IPCC is currently in its seventh assessment cycle, which formally began in July 2023 with the elections of the new IPCC and Taskforce Bureaus at the IPCC’s Plenary Session in Nairobi.
IPCC’s latest report, the Sixth Assessment Report, was completed in March 2023 with the release of its Synthesis Report, which provides direct scientific input to the first global stocktake process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at COP28 in Dubai.
The Sixth Assessment Report comprises three Working Group contributions and a Synthesis Report. The Working Group I contribution 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, distils and integrates the findings of the three Working Group assessments as well as the three Special Reports released in 2018 and 2019.
The special reports were on Global Warming of 1.5°C (October 2018.), Climate Change and Land (August 2019) and, the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate (September 2019).
For more information visit www.ipcc.ch.
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