The decision was expected to take minutes. But after nearly three years of debate, members of the world’s leading authority on climate change still can’t agree on a timeline to publish its next review of the latest science on the warming planet.
Such assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have informed every major United Nations climate agreement for three decades.
But the impasse over publication dates could leave countries to decide the next phase of action without consensus on critical issues – including the extent to which some global warming might be reversible – according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former IPCC scientists, government negotiators and meeting observers.
Those discussions are intended to guide decisions on climate financing and national targets to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. The deadlock – unprecedented in the IPCC’s history – comes as the organisation faces increasing pressure from governments critical of climate policies they say hurt industrial competitiveness or restrict the ability of emerging economies to use cheaper, more polluting fuels to meet development needs. The United States, the IPCC’s biggest funder, quit the organisation in January. The IPCC will publish three key reports: one on the extent and causes of climate change, another on vulnerabilities and how countries can adapt, and a third on options to avoid warming getting worse.
That’s when governments are due to assess progress toward goals set out in the landmark agreement reached in Paris in 2015. On October 12, representatives from the IPCC’s 195 member states are expected to have convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, for a plenary meeting many see as the last chance to agree publication dates falling before UN climate talks in November 2028. The possibility the IPCC’s reports might not be ready in time for the 2028 talks has alarmed a coalition of countries pushing for more robust action. Scientists chairing groups preparing the reports have proposed a work plan that would see all three approved by September 2028.
