LIMA, PERU, Oct 27 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today opened its 63rd Plenary Session in Lima, Peru, bringing together some 300 delegates from IPCC member governments and observer organizations to advance its work in the seventh assessment cycle.
Over the four-day session, the Panel will continue discussions on the timelines for the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), as well as on the draft outline and timeline of the Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage.
In addition, the Panel will discuss the IPCC’s Trust Fund programme and budget for 2026, the indicative budget for 2027 and 2028, a proposal for an expert meeting, and other agenda items.
“By now, we know the scope of the Seventh Assessment Report, and we have selected the scientists who will be delivering the work,” said IPCC Chair Jim Skea. “Building on the progress made so far, the Panel now needs to settle the important matter of the timelines for producing the reports, taking into account inclusive assessment practices and policy relevance. I trust that Panel members will seek consensus on the timelines in line with the IPCC’s established procedures.”
The Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugo de Zela addressed the opening of the IPCC’s 63rd Plenary Session, reaffirming the country’s commitment to the global fight against climate change. In his remarks, Minister De Zela urged member states to act with a sense of urgency and responsibility to finalize the reports and methodologies necessary to accelerate climate action.
“Information produced by the IPCC remains essential to guiding the policy decisions of States seeking to reduce global warming,” said Minister De Zela.
The IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle formally began in July 2023 and will culminate in the release of the AR7 Synthesis Report in 2029. In this cycle, the IPCC will prepare the AR7, which comprises three Working Group contributions and a Synthesis Report, as well as update the 1994 Technical Guidelines for Assessing Climate Change Impact and Adaptation. The Panel will also produce a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, and two Methodology Reports.
Delegates were welcomed at an opening ceremony in Lima this morning, which included remarks from Peru’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Hugo de Zela, Deputy Minister of Strategic Development of Natural Resources for Peru’s Ministry of Environment, Raquel Hilianova Soto Torres, the IPCC Chair Jim Skea, and Director of Climate Change Division of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Martin Krause. The opening also included projections of video messages from Celeste Saulo, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization and Simon Stiell, the Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Except for the opening session, the IPCC meeting is closed to the media. Visuals and video messages from the opening ceremony will be available here.
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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, scientists and 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 Task Force Bureaus at the IPCC’s Plenary Session in Nairobi.
At its first Plenary Session in the seventh assessment cycle – the 60th Plenary Session in Istanbul, Türkiye, in January 2024 – the Panel agreed to produce in this cycle the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), 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 during AR7.. Scientists have also been asked to deliver a Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage. At the IPCC’s 61st Plenary Session held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 27 July to 2 August 2024, the Panel agreed upon the outlines for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities scheduled for approval and publication in March 2027 and for the 2027 IPCC Methodology Report on Inventories for Short-lived Climate Forcers scheduled for publication in the second half 2027. The Panel agreed on the outlines of the Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report during its 62nd Session in February 2025 held in in Hangzhou, China.
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.
IPCC’s latest report, the Sixth Assessment Report, was completed in March 2023 with the release of its Synthesis Report, which provided 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).
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