GENEVA, Oct 5 – Welcoming today’s announcement of the three laureates receiving the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics – Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi for research that advances understanding of complex physical systems such as Earth’s changing climate, the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Hoesung Lee said:
“We at IPCC congratulate the laureates of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics. As public awareness of climate change grows, it is encouraging to see the Nobel Physics Prize recognizing the work of scientists who have contributed so much to our understanding of climate change, including two IPCC authors – Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann”.
Both authors contributed to the IPCC’s First Assessment report in 1990, and Third Assessment Report in 2001, while Hasselmann also contributed to the Second Assessment Report in 1995. The IPCC as an institution shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore. The IPCC released the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report in August this year, with the remaining three parts due in 2022.
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For more information, please contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int
Andrej Mahecic, +41 22 730 8516, Werani Zabula, +41 22 730 8120
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, 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 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 estimating emissions and removals of greenhouse gases.
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.
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