Today, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the Synthesis Report to the Sixth Assessment Report. “The climate time bomb is ticking. But today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb. It is a survival guide for humanity,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.

Jill Tauber, Vice President of Litigation for Climate & Energy, released the following statement:

“The Synthesis Report makes clear that we need swift and bold action to have any chance of averting the worst of the climate crisis. Under President Biden’s leadership, the U.S. has made historic progress in building an equitable clean energy economy, including the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. However, the administration is undermining its own gains by greenlighting carbon bombs, like the Willow project, which would lock us into decades of more greenhouse gas emissions.

“Funding clean energy and ensuring it is accessible to everyone is essential, but we cannot protect people and the planet from climate disaster if the fossil fuel buildout continues. At this late stage in the climate crisis, we must urgently and equitably ramp up clean energy while saying ‘no’ to fossil fuels — we cannot afford anything less.”

Background

The IPPC’s Sixth Assessment integrates findings from the three Working Group assessments released in 2021 as well as the three Special Reports released in 2018 and 2019. This assessment makes the urgency of climate change abundantly clear and underlines the fact that inaction is no longer an option.

The IPCC has three working groups: Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II, dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III, dealing with the mitigation of climate change. It also has a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals.

IPCC assessments provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC assessments are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. IPCC reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency.

The Fifth Assessment Report was completed in 2014 and provided the main scientific input to the Paris Agreement.