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Assessment
Reports
In
accordance with its mandate and as reaffirmed in various decisions
by the Panel, the major activity of the IPCC is to prepare in
regular intervals comprehensive and up-to-date assessments of
policy-relevant scientific, technical and socio-economic information
relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change,
potential impacts of climate change and options for mitigation
and adaptation. The First Assessment Report was completed in
1990, the Second Assessment Report in 1995 and the Third Assessment
Report in 2001. Assessment Reports normally consist of the full
scientific, technical and socio-economic assessment reports
of the IPCC Working Groups and their Summaries for Policymakers,
and a Synthesis Report. At its eighteenth session in September
2001 the Panel decided to continue to prepare comprehensive
assessment reports and it agreed that the Fourth
Assessment Report would be completed in 2007.
Special Reports
and Technical Papers
The
IPCC prepares also Special Reports and Technical Papers, often
in response to requests from the Conference of the Parties to
the UNFCCC, or from other environmental Conventions, e.g. the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention to
Combat Desertification (CCD), or the Vienna Convention on the
Protection of the Ozone Layer. At its Twentieth Session in February
2003 the Panel adopted a framework and
set of criteria for establishing priorities for Special
Reports, Methodology Reports and Technical Papers for the period
of the Fourth Assessment.
Special
Reports have been prepared on topics such as aviation and the
global atmosphere, regional impacts of climate change, technology
transfer, emissions scenarios and issues related to land use,
land use change and forestry. They are subject to the same writing,
review and approval process as Assessment Reports. In 2005 two
new Special Reports, the Special Report
on Safeguarding the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate System:
Issues Related to Hydrofluorocarbons and Perfluorocarbons and
the Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage have
been finalized.
Technical
Papers are prepared on topics for which an objective international
scientific/technical perspective is essential. They are based
on material already in the IPCC Assessment Reports and Special
Reports and their preparation follows accelerated procedures.
A Technical Paper on Climate Change
and Water is planned for release in late 2007, after the
approval of the AR4.
National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (NGGIP)
Within
the National Greenhouse
Gas Inventories Programme (NGGIP) the IPCC assesses and
develops methods and practices for national greenhouse gas inventories
and disseminates information related to inventory methods and
practices. The Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories (TFB) oversees and provides guidance to the programme.
The Task Force Bureau is elected
by the Panel and is composed of two co-chairs and 12 members.
The NGGIP
prepares methodology reports and develops software for the calculation
and reporting of national GHG emissions and removals, including
an emission factors database. The activities are normally undertaken
in response to an invitation by the Conference of the Parties
to the UNFCCC and are aimed to meet the inventory reporting
requirements of Parties to the UNFCCC. In the year 2003 two
methodology reports have been completed. Recently preparations
for the the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories have started (Outline/List
of authors).
Task Group on Data and Scenario
Support for Impacts and Climate Analysis (TGICA) & IPCC
Data Distribution Center (DDC)
The
IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impacts and
Climate Analysis (TGICA) is composed of experts in modelling,
climate impact assessment and emissions scenarios and is co-chaired
by Mr. J. Marengo (Brazil) and Mr. R. Moss (USA) . It was established
under a slightly different name (Task Group on Scenarios for
Climate and Impact Assessment, TGCIA), following a recommendation
made at the IPCC Workshop on Regional Climate Change Projections
for Impact Assessment (London, 24-26 September 1996) to facilitate
co-operation between the climate modelling and climate impacts
assessment communities. The IPCC
Data Distribution Centre (DDC) has been established by the
Task Group to provide timely information and data to the international
climate research community, in particular consistent data sets
and guidance material. The DDC contains results from climate
change experiments, i.e. data from global climate models (GCMs)
produced by different modelling centers. Further types of information
provided on the DDC are observed climate datasets for a number
of variables, observed environmental data, including concentrations
of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and socio-economic scenario
information such as datasets for different SRES (IPCC Special
Report on Emissions Scenarios) futures. Guidance material on
how the climate scenarios and baseline data can be used in impacts
and adaptation assessments and documentation accompany the information
on the DDC.
The
Panel agreed at it's twentieth session (Paris, February 2003)
that role and mandate of the TGCIA be reviewed and that its
membership be refreshed. At its twenty-first session (November
2003, Vienna) the IPCC approved the revised
mandate and agreed on the new name of the Task Group. The
IPCC Bureau at it's thirty-first session (Geneva, April 2004)
approved the new membership of
the TGICA.
Task
Group on New Emissions Scenarios
Following
consideration of further work of the IPCC on emissions scenarios
the Panel at its 24th Session (Montreal, 2005) agreed to set
up a Task Group for a limited period of time up to IPCC-25 to
define and clarify what facilitating role or co-ordination needs
to be undertaken by the IPCC, as well as deliverables drawing
on users’ needs, timelines and organisational arrangements.
Further information can be found in the report of the IPCC Workshop
on New Emission Scenarios, held 29 June - 1 July 2005 in Laxenburg,
Austria and the Report of the 24th Session of the Panel
Mandate
of the Task Group and Membership.
Workshops
and Expert Meetings
Workshops
and Expert Meetings may be held to support the IPCC assessment
process when the IPCC, an IPCC Working Group or the Task Force
on Inventories decide that such meetings are useful or necessary
for the completion of its workplan or task. Expert meetings,
scoping meetings or workshops may also be held to scope a an
IPCC Report or to advise the Panel e.g. on whether to prepare
a Special Report. They are by invitation only. The IPCC may
also co-sponsor workshops if the activity will be useful to
the work of the IPCC.
Proceedings
of IPCC workshops and expert meetings are normally published
as IPCC supporting material. Supporting material has not been
subject to formal IPCC review processes. For some IPCC expert
meetings or scoping meetings only summary reports are prepared,
which can be found under official
documents/meeting reports. These summary reports have been
prepared under the guidance of the IPCC co-chairs responsible
for organizing the meeting, but are not IPCC approved documents.
For
information on published IPCC reports, technical papers, guidelines
and supporting material see Publications.
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