AR6 Climate Change 2021: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

On 15 September 2017, a call for nomination of authors was sent to governments, Observer Organizations and IPCC Bureau Members. They were asked to submit their nominations via their Focal Point before Friday 27 October 2017 (midnight GMT +1).

The Bureaus of the three IPCC Working Groups met to select the author teams from the list of nominations on 29 – 30 January 2018.

• Press release: Selection of Authors for IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
• Leaflet: Nomination of Authors for AR6
• List of Authors and Review Editors for the Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Cycle by Chapter

Statistics about author nominations can be accessed on the public portal.

Lead Author Meetings

• First Lead Author Meeting: Durban, South Africa, 20 – 25 January 2019, 1 – 5 April 2019
• Second Lead Author Meeting: Kathmandu, Nepal, 15 – 19 July 2019
• Third Lead Author Meeting: Faro, Portugal, 26 January – 1 February 2020
• Fourth Lead Author Meeting: Virtual, 1 – 12 March 2021

All IPCC reports undergo two stages of review. A First-Order Draft is reviewed by experts. Following the expert review, authors develop a Second-Order Draft based on the comments received. This draft then undergoes a second review by both governments and experts. Authors will prepare a Final Draft based on the comments received during the second review. The Final Draft is distributed to governments at the time of the final government review of the Summary for Policymakers.

The First-Order Draft of the Working Group II contribution to AR6 underwent an expert review  from 18 October to 13 December 2019. The Second-Order Draft was reviewed by experts and governments from 4 December 2020 to 29 January 2021.

• Factsheet: What is an Expert Reviewer of IPCC Reports?

The scoping meeting for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) took place in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) from 1 to 5 May 2017. The draft outlines were approved by the Panel when it met in September 2017

In order to determine robust areas of consideration, participants in the Scoping Meeting needed to have a broad understanding of climate change and related issues, and collectively had expertise in the following areas:

Working Group II

• Co-benefits, risks and co-costs of mitigation and adaptation, including interactions and trade-offs, technological and financial challenges and options.
• Ethics and equity: climate change, sustainable development, gender, poverty eradication, livelihoods, and food security.
• Perception of risks and benefits of climate change, adaptation and mitigation options, and societal responses, including psychological and sociological aspects.
• Climate engineering, greenhouse gas removal, and associated feedbacks and impacts.
• Regional and sectorial climate information.
• Epistemology and different forms of climate related knowledge and data, including indigenous and practice-based knowledge.

Regional expertise

Africa
Europe
Asia
Australasia
North America
Central and South America
Polar regions
Small islands
Ocean

On 21 September 2016, the IPCC Secretariat sent out a pre-scoping questionnaire to governments and observer organizations to identify policy relevant questions and scientific and technical topics to be addressed in the Sixth Assessment Report (deadline: 30 November 2016, extended to 12 December 2016). The responses received were synthesized and made available to the participants of the AR6 Scoping Meeting and the Panel.

Chair’s Vision Paper