The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has rescheduled the approval session for the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) to July 26-30, 2021 from April.
The location and modalities of the 54th Session are still under consideration.
The Panel also postponed the review of the Final Government Draft of the Working Group I report fromMay 3 to June 20, 2021 and ageed on a one-week reduction in the length of the Final Government Draft (FGD) review, starting the review on May 3 instead of April 26, 2021 to relieve pressure on the drafting process.
“I would like to pay tribute to the authors, contributors and reviewers of this report, whose commitment in the challenging conditions of the pandemic around the world allows us to provide a timely, comprehensive and rigorous assessment of the state of climate science, with many novel aspects,” said Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Co-Chair of Working Group I.
Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change, and will be the first of the IPCC working groups to release its AR6 contribution, which will be considered by the 54th Session of the IPCC. On this timetable, the Working Group I report would be released in early August.
The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed scientific work, including the preparation of scientific literature to be assessed in AR6. The work of the IPCC authors has also been disrupted. As a result the IPCC has made several changes to the timing of milestones in the preparation of the AR6 reports.
The timing of the approval sessions for the other two IPCC working group reports and for the AR6 Synthesis Report is still under consideration.
