Over 230 experts from over 70 countries will gather at the Scoping Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from December 9 to 13, 2024, to draft the outlines of the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Working Group contributions are the three key pillars of the IPCC’s periodical assessment reports. They include the Working Group I report on the Physical Science Basis, the Working Group II report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and the Working Group III report on Mitigation of Climate Change.
“This is the critical first step in shaping the contents of our next report assessing the science related to climate change. In this meeting, experts will consider the scientific substance and draft the overall structure of the three Working Group contributions for governments to consider and agree upon in the Panel’s upcoming Plenary scheduled for February next year,” said IPCC Chair, Jim Skea.
The Panel decided to produce its Seventh Assessment Report in January 2024 during its 60th Plenary Session in Istanbul, Türkiye.
The Seventh Assessment Report comprises the three Working Group contributions and a Synthesis Report which the IPCC decided should be ready in 2029. The Synthesis Report, which will draw together findings from the three Working Group contributions and a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, will be the subject of a further scoping meeting.
The full set of reports assessing the latest climate change science during the seventh assessment cycle includes the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, a Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers, a Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage and a revision and an update of the 1994 IPCC Technical Guidelines on Impacts and Adaptation including adaptation indicators, metrics and guidelines. The latter will be developed in conjunction with the Working Group II report and published as a separate product.
The Seventh Assessment Report will assess scientific findings that have been published since the completion of the Sixth Assessment Report in March 2023.
The Sixth Assessment Report clearly stated that in 2020 global warming reached 1.1°C, above pre-industrial level, driven by more than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use. This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world. Impacts are expected to intensify with every fraction of additional warming, particularly for the most vulnerable communities, accounting for 3.3 – 3.6 billion people.
This report underlined the urgency of transformative adaptation and immediate emissions reductions. It also noted that there are tools, such as renewable energy, and options across all sectors to limit warming to 1.5°C, but that progress needs to accelerate as the chances of achieving that goal are becoming increasingly thin.
Following the AR7 Scoping Meeting, IPCC Bureau Members will take part in a symposium on bridging climate science and policy to accelerate climate action organised by the government of Malysia, the British High Commission in Malaysia and the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
