Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Switzerland this week to finalise the last report of its sixth assessment cycle, which is expected to set up the tempo for a string of climate change-focused discussions over the next fortnight.

About Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). 
• It has a secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, hosted by the WMO, and is governed by 195 member states.
• Its main activity is to prepare Assessment Reports, special reports, and methodology reports assessing the state of knowledge of climate change.
• It is  a scientific body whose periodic assessments of climate science form the basis of global climate action, is set to finalise what is known as the Synthesis Report, incorporating the findings of the five reports that it has released in the sixth assessment cycle since 2018.
• However, the IPCC does not itself engage in scientific research.
• Instead, it asks scientists from around the world to go through all the relevant scientific literature related to climate change and draw up the logical conclusions.

About Assessment Reports

• The IPCC’s Assessment Reports (ARs), form the basis for government policies to tackle climate change, and provide the scientific foundation for the international climate change negotiations.
• Six Assessment Reports have been published so far, the sixth report (AR6) coming in three parts — the first in August 2021, the second in February 2022, and the third to be finished in March 2023.

About Synthesis Report

• It is the last of the Sixth Assessment reports.
• It is supposed to be a relatively non-technical summary of the previous reports, aimed largely at policymakers around the world.
• It is meant to address a wide range of policy-relevant scientific questions related to climate change, but, like all IPCC reports, in a non-prescriptive manner.

What previous reports have said

• The first Assessment Report (1990)  formed the basis for the negotiation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, known as the Rio Summit.
• The second Assessment Report (1995) -AR2 was the scientific underpinning for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.
• The third Assessment Report (2001) presented new and stronger evidence to show global warming was mostly attributable to human activities.
• The fourth Assessment Report (2007) won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for IPCC. It was the scientific input for the 2009 Copenhagen climate meeting.
• The fifth Assessment Report (2014) -AR5 formed the scientific basis for negotiations of the Paris Agreement in 2015.