IPCC meets in Switzerland

IPCC meets in Switzerland

Subject: Environment

Section: International Convention

Context: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an UN-backed 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.

More on the News:

• 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.
• IPCC, an UN-backed 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.
• The Synthesis Report 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.
• This will bring an end to the Sixth Assessment Report, a collective work of thousands of scientists over a period of eight years, starting in February 2015.
• The release of the Synthesis Report on March 20 would be immediately followed by a ministerial-level meeting in Copenhagen. This will discuss ways to implement the decisions taken at last year’s climate meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, especially the one related to creation of a new fund to help countries hit by climate-related disasters. This meeting is aimed at building the atmosphere for more ambitious agreements at this year’s climate conference, scheduled in Dubai towards the end of the year.

Assessment Reports

• IPCC’s Assessment Reports (ARs), which are produced every few years, are the most comprehensive and widely accepted scientific evaluations of the state of the Earth’s climate.
• They 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 first Assessment Report (1990) noted that emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. This report 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) revised the projected rise in global temperatures to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and sea-level rise to 50 cm, in light of more evidence. AR2 was the scientific underpinning for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.
• The third Assessment Report (2001) revised the projected rise in global temperatures to 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100 compared to 1990.
• The fourth Assessment Report (2007) said greenhouse gas emissions increased by 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004, and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in 2005 (379 ppm) were the most in 650,000 years. The report won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for IPCC. It was the scientific input for the 2009 Copenhagen climate meeting.
• The fifth Assessment Report (2014) said more than half the temperature rise since 1950 was attributable to human activities, and that the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide were “unprecedented” in the last 800,000 years. AR5 formed the scientific basis for negotiations of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
• Sixth report (AR6) coming in three parts.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.
• The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
• Its main activity is to prepare Assessment Reports, special reports, and methodology reports assessing the state of knowledge of climate change.
• 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.