Posted on 10 January 2021 by John Hartz

Story of the Week...

Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessment

Look for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in a hoped-for global economic recovery from pandemic. 

John Kerry – then U.S. Secretary of State, and now set to be the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate – signs the Paris Agreement on Climate Change on April 22, 2016, at UN headquarters, with his granddaughter in tow. The upcoming IPCC Sixth Assessment Report will be released ahead of the 2023 deadline for nations to update the emission cuts they pledged under the agreement. (Photo credit: United Nations / Flickr) 

Despite the speed bump posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is rolling toward completion of its Sixth Assessment Report, the latest in a series that began in 1990.

IPCC’s assessments, produced by many hundreds of scientists volunteering countless hours, have long been the world’s most definitive statements on human-induced climate change from fossil fuel use. Rather than carrying out its own research, the IPCC crafts its consensus assessment reports based on the vast array of peer-reviewed work in science journals. The draft reports are scrutinized by experts and officials in UN-member governments before they become final.

It’s too soon to know exactly what the authors will conclude in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), to be released in 2021-22, but the chapter outlines suggest a more interwoven look at how society is affected by, and responds to, the climate crisis.

The report could also end up tipping its hat toward a narrowing range of potential outcomes, as reflected in recent key papers and greenhouse-gas emission trends. If the most dire scenarios of past reports are a bit less likely than it seemed a decade ago, some of the tamer scenarios also might be increasingly out of reach.

Nations will draw on the new assessment as they prepare to revise their emission goals in the Paris Agreement’s first five-year stocktake, set for 2023.

Click here to access the entire article as originally posted on the Yale Climate Connections website.

Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessment by Bob Henson, Article, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 6, 2021

Toon of the Week...

Hat tip to the Stop Climate Science Denial Facebook page.

Coming Soon on SkS...

• Reviewing the horrid global 2020 wildfire season (Jeff Masters)
• How we work: Getting input from scientists (Baerbel et al.)
• SkS New Research for Week #2 (Doug Bostrom)
• Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing (Baerbel)
• How to ‘fairly’ share emissions from goods traded around the world (Dr Michael Jakob, Dr Hauke Ward & Dr Jan C Steckel)
• 2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3 (John Hartz)
• 2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #3 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week...

SkS Week in Review... 

• Sun: 2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #1 by John Hartz (SkS Original)
• Mon: Climate Change: The Science and Global Impact - a MOOC presented by Michael Mann by BaerbelW (SkS Original)
• Tue: Is Climate Action... Winning..? by Climate Adam (YouTube Video)
• Wed: Skeptical Science New Research for Week #1, 2021 by Doug Bostrom (SkS Original)
• Thu: Covid-19 and Climate Change Will Remain Inextricably Linked, Thanks to the Parallels (and the Denial) by Ilana Cohen (Inside Climate News Repost)
• Fri: Guest post: How human activity threatens the world’s carbon-rich peatlands by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel (Carbon Brief Repost)
• Sat: 2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2 by John Hartz (SkS Original)