GENEVA, April 12 – Over 140 experts from 65 countries will meet next week in Riga, Latvia, to draft the outline of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. The scoping meeting, scheduled to run from 16 to 19 April, is the first step in production of the report. The draft outline developed by experts attending the scoping meeting in Riga will be considered by the Panel at its next Session at the end of July.
The Special Report on Climate Change and Cities is expected to be released in early 2027 and will be the only special report the IPCC produces in the seventh assessment cycle. It is being developed under the joint scientific leadership of Working Groups I, II, and III, with support by the Working Group II Technical Support Unit.
The Panel has already decided to produce the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and the Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers during the previous, sixth assessment cycle.
Meanwhile, the Seventh Assessment Report will comprise the three Working Group contributions and a Synthesis Report which is to be prepared by late 2029. The three Working Group contributions will cover the physical science basis of climate change; its impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation; as well as mitigation of climate change.
The IPCC will also prepare a Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage, and will revise the 1994 IPCC Technical Guidelines on impacts and adaptation as well as adaptation indicators, metrics and guidelines.
Media briefing
On 15 April 2024, IPCC Chair Jim Skea, IPCC Bureau Members, and representatives from the Latvian government will give a media briefing to local media in Riga at 2 p.m. local time. The briefing will take place at the Radisson Blu Latvija Hotel.
Outreach
On the margins of the Scoping Meeting, the IPCC will hold several outreach events.
On 17 April at noon local time, the IPCC Chair accompanied by several IPCC Bureau Members, will meet and brief members of the Latvian parliament, including those from the Parliamentary Committee on Sustainable Development.
That same evening from 6.30 local time several IPCC experts will be taking part in an event organized by the CLIMAAX research project at the Raddison Blu Latvija Hotel.
On 19 April, IPCC experts will address and discuss climate change-related issues with the members of the Riga City Council, academia, experts, architects, and other audiences at an event hosted by the Riga City Council from 14.00 to 17.00.
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.
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.