Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), often referred to in German as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was established in November 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as an intergovernmental institution to summarize for policy makers the state of scientific research on climate change with the aim of providing a basis for science-based decision-making without recommending action. The IPCC Secretariat is based in Geneva (Switzerland), 195 governments are members of the IPCC, and more than 120 organizations are registered as observers to the IPCC.

The main task of the committee is to compile the scientific basis and the worldwide state of research on the effects of global warming and its risks, as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies, and to evaluate them from a scientific perspective. To this end, the IPCC convenes thousands of scientists from all over the world. They produce the IPCC's Assessment Reports. To date, the IPCC has published five Assessment Reports and more than ten Special Reports, as well as Guidelines for the Preparation of Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

The Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are considered by the scientific community to be the most credible and well-founded account of the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic research on climate and its changes, and on ways of dealing with them. The IPCC's conclusions are endorsed by all major U.S. scientific societies with relevant expertise, including the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, they are endorsed by the national academies of science of many countries, including France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, China, and Brazil, as well as the Royal Society, among others. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, together with former US Vice President Al Gore.

Overview and methodology

The IPCC does not conduct research itself, but on its behalf experts compile the results of research from various disciplines, including climatology, the social sciences and technology. It presents a coherent account of this material in so-called assessment reports, the IPCC Assessment Reports.

The IPCC Assessment Reports consist of three volumes, each of which is prepared by a working group. Working Group 1 deals with the scientific basis of climate change, Working Group 2 deals with the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change and its impacts. It also describes ways in which humans can adapt to global warming. Working Group 3 identifies policy and technological measures to mitigate climate change. In each working group, several hundred experts from around the world work for about three years on a report of more than a thousand pages each. Special reports are prepared according to the same procedure as assessment reports, but deal with a specific topic in great detail.

The status reports undergo a multi-stage peer review process. In three successive rounds of peer review, comments, criticisms and suggestions are processed by the authors. For the Fifth Assessment Report, tens of thousands of comments were submitted by hundreds of researchers and governments; independent review editors ensure that the revisions take everything into account.

The summaries for political decision-makers, which are included in all status reports and special reports, are adopted sentence by sentence by the governments in a plenary meeting chaired by the scientists. In doing so, the government representatives pay particular attention to ensuring that the statements are complete, understandable and balanced. Only information from the underlying reports may be used. The scientific authors have the final say, as they decide whether the wording proposed by the governments is correct. The plenary approves the overall report, including the executive summary. Through this process, governments acknowledge the scientific statements of the IPCC reports.

During the preparation and review process, reports and reviewer comments are confidential. Once a report has been published, all documents can be inspected.

In its Assessment Reports, the IPCC made widely quoted statements about future climate change. These statements, based on different scenarios called representative concentration pathways (RCPs), have formed the basis of scientific and, above all, political and economic discussions about the expected extent of global warming for years and contribute significantly to decision-making.

Organization

The IPCC is an institution of the United Nations. It is a scientific body and at the same time an intergovernmental committee. The seat of the Council is Geneva. Currently (2016), 195 countries are members, governments of countries that are members of the United Nations or the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). New teams of authors are assembled for each report, scientists from around the world who contribute to the work of the IPCC as authors and reviewers without additional payment. In addition, the IPCC has more than 100 accredited observers from international organizations as well as from civil society.

The member states of the IPCC meet in plenary session about once a year. Hundreds of experts and representatives of governments and recognised observer organisations take part. The plenary decides on management matters, rules of procedure for report preparation and the work programme. It also elects the chairs of the IPCC and its working and project groups, as well as the other board members. Finished reports are adopted there and topics for future reports are decided.

The 34 board members are recognized experts and support the scientific work of the IPCC. An Executive Committee ensures that decisions of the Plenary are implemented. This committee has about a dozen members and is composed of the chairs and vice-chairs of the IPCC as well as the chairs of the working groups and a project group. The heads of the IPCC secretariat and offices participate as advisors.

Three working groups prepare the progress report and the special reports:

• Working Group I deals with the scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change.
• Working Group II addresses the impacts of climate change, the vulnerability of socio-economic and ecological systems to climate change, and options for adaptation.
• Working Group III deals with technological and socio-economic measures to mitigate climate change.

Two co-chairs coordinated the work of each of the three working groups, supported by seven or eight vice-chairs and a secretariat for each.

A permanent project group, The Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, is concerned with the development of methodologies and the standardization of procedures for the compilation of inventories of greenhouse gas emission data in individual countries, e.g. for the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The project group is coordinated by two co-chairs, supported by 12 vice-chairs and an office.

The IPCC also maintains a data centre, the IPCC Data Distribution Centre, coordinated by the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis.

Chair

The first chairman of the IPCC was the Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin from 1988 to 1996, followed by the British chemist Robert Watson. From 2002, the Indian economist Rajendra Kumar Pachauri was chairman of the IPCC. After his early resignation of 2015, the previous vice president Ismail El Gizouli took over as acting head. In October 2015, the Korean economist Hoesung Lee was elected as the new chair.