INTERLAKEN, March 13 –The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began its meeting today to approve the Synthesis Report to the Sixth Assessment Report. The session, taking place in Interlaken, Switzerland, is scheduled to run until 17 March.
The Synthesis Report is the final instalment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. It integrates and summarises the findings of the six reports released by IPCC during the current cycle which began in 2015. This includes three Special Reports and the three IPCC Working Group contributions to the Sixth Assessment Report.
During this meeting, the IPCC will approve the Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report line by line. The panel will also adopt the longer report section by section.
“Once approved, the Synthesis Report, will become a fundamental policy document for shaping climate action in the remainder of this pivotal decade. For policymakers of today and tomorrow, a much-needed textbook for addressing climate change. Make no mistake, inaction and delays are not listed as options,” said the IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee opening the conference.
On behalf of the host country, Swiss Federal Councilor Albert Rösti welcomed over 650 delegates attending this IPCC plenary.
Video messages by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation Petteri Taalas, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Inger Andersen and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell were also screened at the plenary.
Video messages and remarks are available here.
For more information, please contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int
Andrej Mahecic, + 41 22 730 8066, Werani Zabula, + 41 22 730 8120, Nina Peeva, + 41 22 730 8142 and Melissa Walsh +41 22 730 8532.
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. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by the WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC. It has 195 member states.
Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, experts volunteer their time as IPCC authors 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 II, 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.
IPCC assessments provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC assessments are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. IPCC reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency.
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 to 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 Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis was released on 9 August 2021. The Working Group II contribution, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, was released on 28 February 2022. The Working Group III contribution, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, was released on 4 April 2022.
The IPCC is currently working on the final instalment of the Sixth Assessment Report, the Synthesis Report, which will integrate the findings of the three Working Group assessments as well as the three Special Reports released in 2018 and 2019.
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, and 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.
For more information, visit www.ipcc.ch.
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