The upcoming assessment cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be authored by more experts from global south institutions than ever before, Carbon Brief analysis finds.
More than 660 scientists from 90 countries have been selected to write the three “working group” reports that will form the core of the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle (AR7).
These three reports are scheduled to be published by 2029 and will summarise the latest research on climate change.
Carbon Brief analysis finds that a record 42% of authors of these upcoming reports are based at institutions in the global south.
Overall, the AR7 working groups will have an equal 50-50 representation of authors who are citizens of the global north and global south.
The analysis shows that the UK has the highest number of authors at 59, followed closely by the US with 55.
Furthermore, Carbon Brief finds that 46% of the report authors are listed as “female” – the second-highest percentage to date for any group of IPCC reports.
In a statement, IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea said the new author teams “reflect increased diversity, in terms of both gender balance and greater representation from developing countries and economies in transition”.
Countries
Earlier this year, Carbon Brief published an analysis of the gender and country of affiliation of the authors of all major IPCC reports, from the first assessment report in 1990 to the sixth assessment report (AR6) in 2023, including working group reports, special reports and methodology reports.
Carbon Brief has now expanded the analysis to include the authors of the AR7 working group reports, which are expected to be published by 2029.
For scientists to become IPCC authors, they must nominate themselves or be nominated by someone else to their country’s “national focal point”, which is often the country’s ministry of environment, climate change or meteorology. It is the focal point’s job to assess the applications and send a subset to the IPCC for their consideration.
The final decision on authors lies with the IPCC bureau – which consists of the chair and vice-chairs, as well as a pair of co-chairs for each working group.
The IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle will feature three working group reports:
- Working Group I (WG1): The physical science basis
- Working Group II (WG2): Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
- Working Group III (WG3): Mitigation of climate change
Across the three working groups, Carbon Brief finds that 42% of the authors are affiliated with institutions in global south countries. This is a record high for any set of IPCC assessment reports.
The chart below shows the percentage of global south authors from every set of IPCC reports ever published.
Each IPCC assessment cycle is marked by the publication of three working group reports, which are summarised in a synthesis report. Carbon Brief has grouped these four reports under the headline “assessment reports” for every assessment cycle.
(“AR7” includes only the three working group reports, as the author list for the synthesis report has not yet been released.)
The first, second and third assessment reports are indicated by the acronyms FAR, SAR and TAR. Subsequent assessment reports are indicated by AR, followed by the name of the assessment cycle.
Most assessment cycles also saw the publication of “special reports”, focusing on specific areas of climate change, and “methodology reports” – technical documents that focus on specific areas of the IPCC’s methodology. Acronyms for these reports are given as SR and MR, respectively, followed by the name of the assessment cycle.
For example, the special reports on 1.5C, the ocean and cryosphere and climate change and land – published over 2018-19 – are part of the sixth assessment cycle and are referred to collectively as SR6.
(To assign each special and methodology report to an assessment cycle, Carbon Brief assumes that assessment reports are the last documents to be published in each assessment cycle. Carbon Brief has grouped the authors from special reports (“SR”) and methodology reports (“MR”) separately for each assessment cycle.)
Carbon Brief defines the global north as North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It defines the global south as Asia (excluding Japan), Africa, Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), Latin America and the Caribbean.
While the three AR7 working group reports collectively have the highest percentage of global south authors compared to other similar groupings, there are individual reports with higher percentages, such as the 2019 special report on land and 2023 synthesis report.
Carbon Brief finds that, with 59 appointed authors, the UK is the most highly represented country in the upcoming IPCC working group reports.
This is closely followed by the US with 55. Rounding off the top five are Australia, Germany and China, with 34, 32 and 29 authors each, respectively.
Comparing the number of authors in each continent shows Europe with comfortably the largest representation, at more than 200 appointed authors. At the other end of the scale, South America and Africa have the fewest authors, with around 80 and 70 authors, respectively.
Of these three reports, WG2 has the highest percentage of global south authors for the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle, while WG1 has the lowest.
Institutions
Carbon Brief has also ranked which institutions have the largest numbers of IPCC authors. The table below shows the top 15 institutions and their country.
| Institution | Country | Number of authors |
|---|---|---|
| Imperial College London | UK | 10 |
| University of Cape Town | South Africa | 9 |
| Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research | Germany | 8 |
| National Centre for Scientific Research | France | 8 |
| CGIAR | International | 6 |
| ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 6 |
| University of Oxford | UK | 5 |
| University of Melbourne | Australia | 5 |
| International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis | Austria | 5 |
| National Institute for Environmental Studies | Japan | 5 |
| CICERO Center for International Climate Research | Norway | 5 |
| International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) | International | 4 |
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | Canada | 4 |
| Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) | Australia | 4 |
| Independent/self employed | International | 4 |
With 10 authors, the UK’s Imperial College London – where IPCC chair Jim Skea worked for almost a decade – tops the list.
It is closely followed by South Africa’s University of Cape Town, which has nine authors. After this, with eight authors apiece are the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
When Carbon Brief carried out similar analysis in 2018 for the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle, the US led the pack with 74 out of the 721 authors and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had eight authors in total.
This year, the most highly ranked US institutions are Cornell University and Rutgers University, which list three authors each.
Only one author from NOAA was listed. This expert’s listing for “institution” specifies “until April 30, 2025 – then retired”.
This comes after disruption to the usual US federal nomination process for selecting IPCC authors.
In February, Donald Trump pulled the US out of a meeting in China to discuss the seventh IPCC assessment cycle, according to Earth.org. The outlet adds that he also ordered federal scientists at the NOAA and the US Global Change Research Program to stop work on all other IPCC climate assessment-related activities.
Citizenship and institution
IPCC authors have two countries listed next to their names – “country” and “citizenship”. For this analysis, Carbon Brief uses the former, which indicates the country where the scientist works, because citizenship data is not available in earlier reports.
However, there are dozens of experts with different countries listed under “country” and “citizenship”.
For example, 59 authors have the UK listed as their “country”, meaning that they work at institutions in the UK. However, 28 of these experts are citizens of other countries, including Kenya, Chile and Spain.
Of the 29 authors with Indian citizenship, nine are registered with institutions in other countries, including Nepal, Malaysia and the UK.
Meanwhile, 13 authors are registered with institutions in Saudi Arabia – including an employee from the oil company Saudi Aramco – but only five have citizenship there.
Carbon Brief finds that a record-high 280 experts are affiliated with institutions in the global south, making up 42% of total authors.
(While half of all authors are citizens of global south countries, citizenship information is not provided with all IPCC reports and so a full comparison throughout IPCC history is not possible.)
IPCC scientists previously told Carbon Brief that experts from the global south often find it easier to apply to join the IPCC via institutions in the global north.
Gender
The IPCC provides binary gender data for all the AR7 authors.
Carbon Brief finds that 46% of the authors of the IPCC’s seventh assessment working group reports are listed as women.
The chart below shows the gender balance of the authors of all IPCC reports ever published.
Of the three AR7 reports, WG2 has the highest proportion of authors who are women.
Just shy of 52% of the authors of the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability report are women, making it the IPCC report with the second-highest proportion of women authors, after the IPCC’s upcoming special report on cities with 53%.
Methodology
Carbon Brief downloaded authorship data on the AR7 working group reports from the IPCC website, which lists data on each author’s gender, citizenship and the country where their institution was based. Carbon Brief also obtained data from the IPCC’s technical support unit.
(The “methodology” section of Carbon Brief’s earlier 2025 and 2023 on IPCC authorship contains more details on how Carbon Brief collected authorship data from the main working group reports and recent special reports.)
Carbon Brief recognises that gender is not best categorised using a binary “male” or “female” label and appreciates that the methods used of determining author gender could result in inaccuracies. However, for the purpose of this analysis, this method was deemed suitable.
The post Analysis: IPCC’s seventh assessment has record-high representation from global south appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: IPCC’s seventh assessment has record-high representation from global south
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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