BANGKOK, March 24 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began its Sixty‑fourth Plenary Session at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in Bangkok, Thailand, today. Nearly 300 delegates representing IPCC member governments and observer organisations from around the world have gathered to advance IPCC’s planned work in the seventh assessment cycle. The session is scheduled from 24 to 27 March 2026.
A key agenda item for this Session is the review of the Principles and Procedures that govern the work of the IPCC, which are subject to review every five years.
With the Panel now more than two and a half years into the seventh assessment cycle, IPCC Chair Jim Skea, invited member governments to initiate this review at this plenary session and strengthen how the IPCC conducts its business.
“The principles and procedures governing our work are vital in safeguarding IPCC’s ability to deliver comprehensive, neutral, objective, transparent, inclusive, and scientifically robust assessments,” said IPCC Chair Jim Skea during his opening remarks. “The Panel can seize the opportunity presented at this plenary to give this important matter its full and undivided attention,” he added.
During the four-day meeting, the Panel will also discuss raising funds for the IPCC Trust Fund, the work programme of its Task Group for Data Support for Climate Change Assessments, and will consider new observer organisations, among other items. The Panel will also receive progress updates from different parts of the IPCC and various products of the seventh assessment cycle.
The IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle formally began in July 2023 and will culminate in the release of the Synthesis Report to the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) in 2029. In this cycle, the IPCC will prepare the AR7, comprising three Working Group contributions and a Synthesis Report, and 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, the Methodology Report on Short-Lived Climate Forcers and the Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage.
During the opening ceremony, delegates were welcomed by the Permanent Secretary of Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Raweewan Bhuridej. The Plenary was also addressed by the IPCC Chair Jim Skea and the Deputy Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation, Ko Barrett. The opening ceremony also included video messages from Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme and Simon Stiell, the Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Except for the opening session, the IPCC Plenary session is closed to the media.
Media assets from the opening ceremony, including text and video recordings of the speeches, visuals and B-roll , will be available here.
For more information, please contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int;
Andrej Mahecic, +41 22 730 8516; 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, 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.
During its 62nd Plenary Session held in Hangzhou, China, in February 2025, the Panel has agreed on the outlines of the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7).
At the Panel’s most recent Plenary Session in Lima, Peru, in October 2025, member governments agreed on the scientific content of the 2027 Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage. There, the Panel also agreed on the 2026 workplan for the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report.
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.
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.
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.
For more information visit www.ipcc.ch