Dr Youba Sokona is an energy and sustainable development expert from Mali and was a vice chair of the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seventh Assessment Report can and must be ready in time for the second Global Stocktake (GST).
The IPCC report plays a pivotal role in assessing climate change science and informing government decisions, especially in the context of multilateral negotiations.
The GST is a key element of the Paris Agreement, designed to evaluate the world’s progress towards long-term climate goals. It must be conducted “in the light of equity and the best available science,” underscoring the importance of IPCC assessments as a primary input for the GST.
As an IPCC author from the Global South, I believe that ensuring the IPCC cycle aligns with GST timelines is crucial for maintaining the integrity of international climate cooperation.
Efforts to enhance the inclusion of developing country voices should be prioritized over inordinate delays, which could risk the irrelevance of the IPCC report for the second Global Stocktake – taking place in 2028.
Concerns over accelerating process
A delayed production at the three IPCC working groups—which craft three reports covering the physical science of climate change, impacts and adaptation, and mitigation— is being justified under three main arguments.
First, those in favour of delaying the report claim that expediting the process could risk a lack of representation of underrepresented communities. A delay may impact the inclusion of voices from the Global South and non-English speakers, reducing the diversity of perspectives essential for a comprehensive assessment.
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Another argument is that the topics covered in the report could also be reduced in range. Ensuring a broad array of topics is vital for addressing the multifaceted nature of climate change and providing a holistic understanding.
Finally, delays would risk spreading out key messages from the different IPCC working groups. Timely integration of insights from the different working groups is crucial for a cohesive and comprehensive assessment.
Measures for inclusion
The IPCC’s role is to provide credible scientific assessments to the UNFCCC process and national decision-makers. Time constraints may lead to some compromises, but it is better to minimize these than to forego IPCC input entirely. The IPCC must ensure its assessments are available in time for the second GST to maintain its relevance and impact on global climate policy-making.
On the inclusion of underrepresented communities, ensuring representation is more about deliberate efforts than merely the time available. Creating networks for southern scholars, facilitating special issues in academic journals, and convening regional meetings can enhance representation.
Delegates convene in a huddle on the fourth day of IPCC-61 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou
Focused attention on these efforts in the next IPCC cycle is more effective than strictly adhering to traditional timelines. My experience as an IPCC author from the Global South indicates that inclusion results from proactive initiatives rather than extended timelines.
Successive IPCC cycles have increasingly included literature from developing regions and better represented perspectives from the Global South. For instance, AR6 highlighted issues of equity, impacts on vulnerable communities, and development pathways relevant to developing countries.
Without IPCC input, the GST may lack essential Southern perspectives. The direction of travel within the IPCC has been towards greater concern for under-represented regions, countries, and research communities. Removing IPCC input risks losing an important source of southern perspectives.
No risk of losing quality
Accelerating the cycle by a few months does not significantly compromise the report’s robustness. Past assessments have been completed within five to six years, and with urgency, drafting and expert reviews can be slightly expedited.
Reviews by governments remain crucial to the science-policy interface. The effective time required for a single working group report is approximately four years from the call for experts for the scoping meeting. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, it is feasible to shorten the drafting and review process by a few months without compromising the quality.
Concerns about topic range and integration can be mitigated through proper planning of publications and coordinated efforts across working groups. Modifying the assessment report process to be more flexible is preferable to rendering the IPCC policy irrelevant. Appropriate planning can achieve a significant degree of integration, even if not perfect.
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Designing the IPCC cycle in ways that prevent input to the GST risks undercutting an essential element of international cooperation—providing scientific assessment to political decision-makers.
Concerns about the under-representation of developing country voices are legitimate but can be better addressed by redoubling efforts to enhance these voices in the IPCC, rather than through delay. Ensuring timely IPCC input to the second GST is essential for effective global action on climate change and for the voices of developing countries to be adequately represented.
This opinion piece is adapted from a letter written by Dr Sokona and 39 other IPCC authors from developing countries ahead of the IPCC’s plenary session in Sofia, Bulgaria
The post The IPCC must produce its flagship report in time for the next UN global stocktake appeared first on Climate Home News.
The IPCC must produce its flagship report in time for the next UN global stocktake
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
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None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
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The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.