GENEVA, Feb 11 – On 14 February 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will begin the approval session to consider the Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, looking at impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change. This virtual meeting will be held from 14 to 25 February.
The meeting is both the 55th Session of the IPCC and the 12th Session of the Working Group II.
This means that the 12th Session of Working Group II will consider the Summary for Policymakers of the report for approval, line-by-line, by government representatives in dialogue with report authors who have the final say. This session concludes with the acceptance of the underlying scientific-technical assessment. Then the 55th Session of the IPCC will accept the work of the Working Group II, thus formally accepting the entire report.
The 55th Session of the IPCC is scheduled to open at 10:00 a.m. (CET) on Monday 14 February 2022. The opening ceremony will be streamed live on the IPCC YouTube Channel.
The opening ceremony runs for approximately an hour. It will include addresses by the IPCC Chair, senior officials from the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Meteorological Organization, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and others.
The opening ceremony is open to the media and can be followed live on the link mentioned above. Otherwise, the IPCC meeting is closed to the public and media.
Embargoed materials
Following the
closure of the 55th IPCC Session and subject to Panel’s approval of the Summary
for Policymakers of the Working Group II report entitled “Climate Change
2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, the press release and other
materials will be made available to registered media under embargo. Details of
how to register for an IPCC accreditation and access to embargoed materials are
available in this media advisory.
The deadline to register is 18 February 2022. We encourage media representatives to register as soon as possible and not leave it to the last minute as the IPCC has limited capacity to deal with late or last-minute requests and cannot guarantee that it will be able to review requests submitted after the deadline.
Interviews
Details of how to book interviews with IPCC authors and Bureau Members who have been working on the report are in this media advisory.
Interviews can be booked until 18.00 CET on 24 February 2022.
ENDS
For more information contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email: media@ipcc.ch
Andrej Mahecic, + 41 79 704 2459 and 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, 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 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 Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis was released on 9 August 2021.
More information about the Working Group II report, including its agreed outline, can be found here.
The Working Group III contribution is scheduled to be finalized in April 2022.
The concluding Synthesis Report is due later in 2022.
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, 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.
The website includes outreach materials including videos about the IPCC and video recordings from outreach events conducted as webinars or live-streamed events.
Most videos published by the IPCC can be found on our YouTube and Vimeo channels.
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