Summary
Welcoming participants to IPCC-50 on Friday morning, IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee noted that the Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) is the first report produced by all three IPCC Working Groups (WGs) and the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventories (TFI), with an integrated policy-relevant approach addressing all three UN Rio conventions.
Elena Manaenkova, WMO Deputy Secretary-General, emphasized the importance of the SRCCL for WMO’s core work given its recent strategic decision to move fully towards an integrated “Earth system” approach.
Via video message, UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen noted that the SRCCL report is timely and underscored the need to translate science to action toward restoring “our degraded planet.”
Florian Vladu, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, said the SRCCL will guide policymakers and practitioners on enabling the best adaptation and mitigation response measures, and said continuing collaboration between the Subsidiary Body on Scientific Technical Advice (SBSTA) and the IPCC at the science-policy interface is effective in enhancing the flow of science into the UNFCCC.
Marc Chardonnens, Director, Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, cautioned against attempting to negotiate science or seeking to discredit IPCC reports and engaging in “selective amnesia,” saying that “we cannot play with the facts.”
The Panel adopted the agenda, with additions on cooperation with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and on progress on the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Synthesis Report (SYR) to the agenda item on Any Other Business. Adoption of the report of IPCC-49 was postponed pending informal consultations.
The IPCC also took note of the report of the Task Group on the Organization of the Future Work of the IPCC in Light of the Global Stocktake under the UNFCCC.
IPCC-50 was then suspended until Tuesday, 6 August.
The second Joint Session of WGs I, II and III, in cooperation with the TFI, then convened to begin consideration of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the SRCCL. Following an overview of the SPM’s approval process, participants discussed the Introduction, which addresses the origins and structure of the SRCCL and includes a number of footnotes that explain the use of terms in the SRCCL. Participants then began discussions on Section A on ‘People, land and climate in a changing world.’
A reception hosted by the Government of Switzerland was held in the evening for participants.
Photos by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis
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