Earth Today | IPCC to determine next round of climate reports
Published:Thursday | January 18, 2024 | 12:07 AM
THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to have a clear plan for its programme of work in the coming years, following the meeting of member governments at its 60th Plenary Session now ongoing in Istanbul, Turkey.
The number and scope of scientific reports that are to be done by the IPCC are among the decisions to be made by the delegates of 195 member governments represented at the four-day meeting, which will end on January 19.
“The latest cycle began with the election of the new IPCC and Task Force Bureaus at the end of July 2023. The Panel already decided at its 43rd Session in April 2016 that a special report on climate change and cities will be produced in the seventh cycle. It also decided at its 49th Session in May 2019 that the seventh cycle will deliver a methodology report on short-lived climate forces,” notes a January 15 news release from the entity.
The IPCC, created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, provides governments with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. Its reports, including the special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, have been a key input into international climate change negotiations.
Speaking at the opening ceremony at the Istanbul Lutfi Kirdar International Convention and Exhibition Centre, new IPCC Chair Jim Skea said there was no question of the impact the IPCC reports have had.
“Our past reports have made a direct and well-recognised contribution to enhancing global climate awareness and supporting climate action. They provided critical inputs for the annual Conferences of the Parties – the COPs – of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and have informed and cast light on the global ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees,” he said.
“Reports on Climate Change and Land, and Oceans and the Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, have highlighted the connections between climate change and other global challenges, and have informed other UN Convention,” Skea added.
He has urged the support of member governments for the continued work of scientists in this area.
“Today, more than ever before, it is evident that climate change science has played a pivotal part in determining the outcome of negotiations between the 198 Parties to the Framework Convention,” Skea said.
“I am confident that all IPCC member governments will recognise the collective benefit from supporting the declared priority for this assessment cycle to strengthen further IPCC’s relevance for all policymakers and our engagement with other UN assessment processes,” he added.
Informed by the science, countries, including small island developing states of the Caribbean, have been locked in the struggle to ensure a climate-safe future. Among the things that have been championed by the work of the IPCC are significantly scaled up mitigation and adaptation actions to stymie the seemingly run-away increases in global temperatures dues to human consumption of fossil fuels that in turn triggers climate impacts.
Those impacts include rising sea levels as well as extreme hurricanes and droughts by which islands of the Caribbean have been devastated over recent years. Climate risks and threats also extend to food and freshwater security, as well as public health.