24 March 2026, Bangkok, Thailand
Check against delivery
Your Excellency, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Dr. Raweewan Bhuridej,
Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, Ko Barett,
Distinguished delegates, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you all – the government delegations, representatives of observer organisations and members of the IPCC Bureau – to the sixty-fourth plenary session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And I am very pleased to see that everyone has been able to make it, in spite of the current geopolitical challenges that we all face.
We are gathered in Thailand, a country with strong scientific institutions and prominent scientists making significant contributions to science, technology and medicine globally. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank UNESCAP management and staff, the Royal Thai Government, and the City of Bangkok for their warm hospitality and support in organising this meeting.
We meet in this Plenary for the fifth time in the seventh assessment cycle. We are now well over two and a half years into it. It has been a period of great progress and some complex and new challenges. So far, despite testing times, the Panel has proven its strength as an important multilateral forum and a unique science-policy interface able to carefully build and foster international consensus – a precious commodity in today’s world.
Our job is to assess the most up-to-date climate science, a cornerstone for any sound policymaking. Here, I stress the key role of the IPCC Bureau, and I thank its members for their exceptional scientific guidance provided to the Panel and for maintaining our momentum.
We have now clearly entered a busy phase of the assessment cycle. Here’s a brief resume of where we are now:
- The entire scientific content of all our reports agreed for this cycle has been agreed upon, and all authors have been selected.
- The three Working Groups have held their first-ever joint First Lead Author Meeting in December. Working Group One’s second Lead Author meeting is scheduled for April, while Working Groups Two and Three plan to hold their respective second Lead Author Meetings in May.
- Authors working on the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities met for the third time in January, and the combined government and expert review of its Second Order Draft will start in May.
- The expert review of the First Order Draft of the Methodology Report, providing guidance on estimating emissions of Short-Lived Climate Forcers, concluded in February. The report’s third Lead Author Meeting will take place next month.
- Lastly, the authors selected for the Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage will gather for their first Lead Author Meeting in two weeks’ time.
With further Lead Author meetings and reviews, as well as expert meetings and workshops, 2026 is shaping up to be the most active year of the current cycle.
The years to follow – 2027, 2028 and 2029 – will be very busy and demanding for both the governments and scientists, starting with approval plenaries for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and two methodology reports, followed by the three Working Groups’ contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report and the Synthesis Report.
Given this, I believe we have a window of opportunity at this plenary session to address ways of working and the important issue of how we actually conduct IPCC business.
In that regard, I would like to bring to the Panel’s attention that the IPCC Principles stipulate that they be reviewed every five years. 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. The Panel can seize the opportunity presented at this plenary to give this important business matter its full and undivided attention. Bureau members, whose task is to implement the procedures, have identified ways in which some aspects could be clarified, and the Panel may wish to consider these.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I also invite the Panel to take a close, in-depth look at the state of IPCC’s finances at this plenary. IPCC’s ability to meet its mandate and deliver the most up-to-date, rigorously reviewed assessments of climate science rests on the sustainability of its Trust Fund, with a continuous and adequate flow of voluntary contributions from our member governments that match our expenditures. The IPCC Trust Fund is a vitally important mechanism for supporting participation by developing-country governments and scientists.
I am confident the Panel will be thorough in its consideration of the full spectrum of options for the long-term sustainability of the IPCC Trust Fund, noting that multi-year funding commitments are especially valuable for planning future activities and expenditures.
Lastly, before we move into the working part of the session, I would like to acknowledge that this week’s plenary will be the last one for our colleague and friend Abdalah Mokssit as the Secretary of the IPCC before his retirement. We will come back to this later, but for now, allow me to express our collective thanks to Abdalah. His long and diverse engagement with the IPCC spans over four cycles. For the past decade, Abdalah has led the Secretariat that manages the technical, logistical, and administrative support for our work.
I invite you to join me in congratulating Abdalah on his achievements as the Secretary of the IPCC and wish him all the best for the next chapter.
And, as I turn the floor back to you, thank you, Abdalah, for your rich contribution and genuine commitment to the work of the IPCC!
Thank you.