Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of increased risks
9th August 2021 — Climate change is demonstrably accelerating, and is already leading to serious changes all over the world. This is the conclusion of IPCC Working Group I's contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report on the Scientific Basis of Climate Change. It was adopted at the end of July/beginning of August in an IPCC virtual plenary session. The report describes the current state of the world's climate and its likely future development. It also provides information on the associated risks for humans and nature and on the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that would be necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. In Paris, a binding international agreement was reached to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, preferably 1.5 °C, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Three DLR-PT employees, Dr Friedemann Call, Dr Stefanie Gastrow and Dr Christiane Textor from the German IPCC Coordination Unit (De-IPCC), were actively involved in the adoption of the report as members of the German delegation on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), and contributed their knowledge and experience in the fields of climate science and climate and research policy.
De-IPCC also accompanies public relations activities concerning the adoption of the report in Germany. Information on the report and a press release on its publication are available on the website of the coordination office.
De-IPCC staff member Carola Best provided information on IPCC procedures at a press briefing of the German Climate Consortium and prepared news releases and social media contributions on IPCC-relevant research projects for the BMBF as part of its Research for Sustainability strategy. She also translated the main statements of the report into German in close consultation with the authors and colleagues in Switzerland and Austria. A complete translation of the summary for political decision-makers will be available for the United Nations Climate Change Conference at the end of the year. In September, the German IPCC Coordination Unit is to host an information event on the report.
Information on the report
The current report describes changes in many aspects of the climate system: temperature changes, sea level rise, changes in weather patterns and much more. The associated risks to people and nature are considered in more detail in Volume II on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, which will be published in February 2022.
The report also makes clear that global greenhouse gas emissions must fall as quickly as possible and be brought to zero if the Paris climate targets are still to be met. Volume III, which will be published in March 2022, is to deal with appropriate measures for this in all social and economic sectors.
For almost three years, more than 240 experts from all over the world have been working on the report, which classifies and evaluates findings from over 14,000 publications. In total, more than 75,000 comments were submitted in several review rounds and processed by the authors. De-IPCC is involved in the nomination of experts and the preparation of the government reports.
The German IPCC Coordination Unit at DLR-PT
The German IPCC Coordination Unit was established in 1998 by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) at DLR-PT. For over 20 years, the Coordination Unit has supported the BMU and the BMBF and acted as a point of contact for government, science and the public on IPCC matters. Its staff promote the transfer of knowledge between climate research and climate policy; together with colleagues from Austria and Switzerland, they provide German translations of the most important IPCC publications. Specialist colleagues from DLR-PT in the field of Environment and Sustainability regularly review drafts of IPCC reports.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a UN committee on climate change in which 195 countries are represented. It was set up by the United Nations in 1988 to pool scientific knowledge on the causes and consequences of climate change and ways of dealing with it. The IPCC does not conduct research itself, but has appointed experts to evaluate the latest research findings on climate change from a scientific perspective.