IPCC begins work on new series of climate reports

IPCC Chairperson Jim Skea said that the IPCC, the global scientific authority on the state of knowledge and challenges from global warming, has begun work on its seventh cycle of assessment reports. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global scientific authority on the state of knowledge and challenges from global warming, has begun work on its seventh cycle of assessment reports, said Jim Skea, Chairperson of IPCC, at the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) organised by The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) earlier this week.

During the sixth assessment cycle (October 2015 – July 2023), the IPCC produced the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) with contributions by its three Working Groups and a Synthesis Report, three Special Reports, and a refinement to its latest Methodology Report.

These reports are the basis of the scientific literature that countries draw on during negotiations at the annual climate conferences. They are also the signposts that guide government and business action on weaning their economies and business activities away from fossil fuel and towards clean fuels.

Laying out the progress made so far in the 7^th Assessment cycle, Mr. Skea said that an “outline” of a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities had been agreed and the lead authors selected. These authors were expected to convene in Osaka, Japan, next week. An outline of another report on Short Lived Climate Forcers – or volatile organic compounds that influence warming – had been agreed upon. This report would be ready late 2027.

Like in the Sixth cycle, the new cycle will also have three working groups each detailing, as before, the latest evidence regarding the physical science basis of climate change; the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability and, the mitigation of climate change respectively. A final ‘Synthesis Report’ would be ready by 2029.