GENEVA, Sept 26 – Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will meet in New Delhi, India, on 30 September to 4 October 2019 to advance their work on the Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report.
More than 200 experts from 65 countries will come together for one week to start preparing a first draft of the report, which is due to be finalized in July 2021. The meeting is hosted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India.
IPCC Working Group III is responsible for assessing the mitigation of climate change – responses and solutions to the threat of dangerous climate change by reducing emissions and enhancing sinks of the greenhouse gases that are responsible for global warming.
The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) will examine topics such as the link between consumption and behaviour and greenhouse gas emissions, and the role of innovation and technology. The report will assess the connection between short to medium-term actions and their compatibility with the long-term temperature goal in the Paris Agreement. It will assess mitigation options in sectors such as energy, agriculture, forestry and land use, buildings, transport and industry.
“Following our previous Lead Author Meeting in the United Kingdom, it is a pleasure to be in the IPCC Working Group III Technical Support Unit’s other home country, India,” said Priyadarshi R. Shukla, Co-Chair of Working Group III. “IPCC authors and scientists are working to deliver the most relevant and up-to-date research on climate change mitigation.”.
The First Order Draft will be available for Expert Review from 13 January to 8 March 2020. The Second Order Draft will be open for Government and Expert Review from 13 July to 13 September 2020, along with the first draft of the Summary for Policymakers. The IPCC Panel is due to consider the Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report at a plenary session on 12 to 16 July 2021.
“Building on previous Working Group III assessments, this report will emphasize what can be done in the near term to mitigate climate change, and how mitigation actions can be enabled through policy, institution-building and finance,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of Working Group III.
“Mitigation efforts will be set firmly in the context of sustainable development and development pathways compatible with a just transition towards net zero emissions,” he said.
The agreed outline of the report can be found here. The list of authors of the report can be found here.
Each of the three IPCC Working Groups will release their contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report in 2021. A Synthesis Report in 2022 will integrate them together with the three special reports that the IPCC is producing in the current assessment cycle. It will be released in time to inform the 2023 global stocktake by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when countries will review progress towards the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming to well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
Media briefing
Monday 30 September 2019, 8:15 – 10:00 a.m.
Taj Mahal Hotel, 1 Mansingh Road, New Delhi
Media are also invited to attend the opening ceremony on Monday 30 September at 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. at the Taj Mahal Hotel, 1 Mansingh Road, New Delhi, Delhi 110011, India.
Outreach event (open to media)
“What are Countries Doing to Mitigate Climate Change?” hosted by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
6:30 – 8 p.m. on Tuesday 1 October at the Indian Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Speakers include Karen Seto, Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanisation Science at Yale University; Harald Winkler, Professor of Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town; and Heleen de Coninck, Associate Professor in Innovation Studies at the Environmental Science Department at Radboud University. This event will be chaired by Professor Navroz K. Dubash, Professor, Centre for Policy Research, and Dr. Ritu Mathur, Senior Fellow, The Energy and Resources Institute.
Event details and registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/72926395813/
For more information contact:
IPCC Working Group III Technical Support Unit
Sigourney Luz (Communications Manager), e-mail: s.luz@ipcc-wg3.ac.uk
IPCC Press Office
Jonathan Lynn, +41 22 730 8066, e-mail: ipcc-media@wmo.int
Notes for editors
About the IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. It has 195 member states.
Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, IPCC scientists volunteer their time to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks.
The IPCC has three working groups: Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group I, dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III, dealing with the mitigation of climate change. It also has a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals.
About the Sixth Assessment Cycle
Comprehensive scientific assessment reports are published every 6 to 7 years; the latest, the Fifth Assessment Report, was completed in 2014, and provided the main scientific input to the Paris Agreement.
At its 41st Session in February 2015, the IPCC decided to produce a Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). At its 42nd Session in October 2015 it elected a new Bureau that would oversee the work on this report and Special Reports to be produced in the assessment cycle. At its 43rd Session in April 2016, it decided to produce three Special Reports, a Methodology Report and AR6.
The IPCC also publishes special reports on more specific issues between assessment reports.
Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty was launched in October 2018.
Climate Change and Land, an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems was launched in August 2019.
The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate was released in September 2019.
In May 2019 the IPCC released the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, an update to the methodology used by governments to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions and removals.
The contributions of the three IPCC Working Groups to the Sixth Assessment Report will be finalized in 2021. The concluding Synthesis Report is due in 2022.
For more information visit www.ipcc.ch.