IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2022 Published

This article features the “IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2022,” published on 28th February 2022. We have included a background story about the IPPC.

Climate Adaptation Platform follows the IPCC 6th Assessment Reports and shares developments through blog posts.

About the IPCC and its Reports

In 1988 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implication and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options” (The Intergovernmental, 2022).

Since the IPCC’s founding in 1988, it has released five assessment cycles and delivered five Assessment Reports:

• AR1 in 1990 and received an Update in 1992,
• AR2 in 1995,
• AR3 in 2001,
• AR4 in 2007, and
• AR5 in 2014.

The IPCC had also published Special Reports about analysing specific issues and Methodology Reports, which provides practical guidance for preparing GHG inventories.

The Assessment Reports are not “policy-prescriptive” but “policy-relevant” as they present projections of future climate change based on different scenarios and the risks it poses response options but do not tell governments on what actions to take (IPCC factsheet, 2021)

The IPCC does not conduct its research but hundreds of leading scientists who volunteer their time and expertise to work and write the studies.

Some author the reports, while others cross-check findings, does fact-checking and work on reference management. The reports also undergo many rounds of drafting and review to ensure that they are comprehensive, transparent, and objective.

The IPCC is divided into three working groups- “Working Group I” prepares the physical science basis of climate change, “Working Group II” with climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability and “Working Group III” with climate change mitigation.

The Sixth Assessment Cycle,Working Groups, and Report

The IPCC is in the 6^th Assessment cycle and has produced the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

Working group 1 released its report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, on 9 August 2021. “The report shows that climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying. It addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations” (Sixth Assessment Report, 2022).

In February, the IPCC released the update of its 6^th Assessment report from Working Group II, Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (WGII contribution). “The Working Group II contribution will be considered during the 55th Session of the IPCC and the 12th Session of the Working Group II from 14 to 25 February 2022. Subject to the Panel’s approval, the Summary for Policymakers will be presented during a press conference on 28 February 2022 at 10.00 AM CET” (Sixth Assessment, 2022).

What the Sixth Assessement Report 2022 conveys?

Greenpeace says that the report outlines how climatic hazards and risks will increase with warming, with considerations of sustainable development, aspects of justice and equity, and the action needed to build resilience (New IPCC climate, 2022).

Climate change is already manifesting across the world – deadly floods in China and Europe in 2021, 49°C temperatures in Canada, tropical heat in Findland and Ireland, forest fires in Siberia, monstrous U.S. wildfires, record droughts across the U.S. West and parts of Brazil (Januta, 2021) and last December 2021, Supertyphoon Rai (local name Odette) in the Philippines.

The Sixth Assessment Report highlights how climatic hazards and risks will increase with warming, considering sustainable development, aspects of justice and equity, and the action needed to build resilience. These issues are “likely to frame the narrative towards COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt later this year”.

To read the full document, please click on the button below: