Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• It is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change.
• It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988.
• Aim: To provide political leaders with periodic scientifi c assessments concerning climate change, its implications, and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies.
• Composition: 195 member states.
• Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
• The IPCC has three working groups:
• Working Group I: Deals with the physical science basis of climate change.
• Working Group II: Deals with impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.
• Working Group III: Deals with the mitigation of climate change.
• The IPCC prepares comprehensive Assessment Reports about the state of scientifi c, technical and socio-economic knowledge on climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for reducing the rate at which climate change is taking place. However, IPCC does not conduct its research.
• The Assessment Report released by IPCC in 2014 was the 5th in a series of such reports..
• 6th Assessment Report of IPCC is expected to be released in 2022

In News

• IPCC made public ‘The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate’ which underlined the dire changes taking place in oceans, glaciers, and icedeposits on land and sea at the United Nations Climate Summit underway in the United States.
• The published report is the last in a series of three reports on specifi c themes that IPCC has published namely:
• Global Warming of 1.5° C: A special report, which was commissioned to specifi cally explore the scientifi c feasibility of the 1.5°C goal set in the Paris Agreement, on global warming.
• Land and climate change: The report focuses on the contribution of land-related activities to global warming i.e how the different uses of land affect the emission of greenhouse gases.
• The report also updates the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report — and summarises the disastrous impacts of warming based on current projections of global greenhouse gas emissions.