Call for experts to participate in the scoping meeting for the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report | deadline: 3 June

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has invited the International Science Council to nominate experts to participate in the Scoping Meeting for the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) to be held tentatively in December 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Scoping Meeting would result in a draft Scoping Paper describing the objectives and annotated outlines of the three Working Group Reports (including the update of the 1994 IPCC Technical Guidelines on Adaptation in conjunction with the Working Group II Report) as well as the process and timeline for their preparation, which would then be considered during the 62nd Session of the Panel in the first quarter of 2025.

Participants in the Scoping Meeting should have a broad understanding of climate change and related issues, and should collectively have expertise in the following areas:

Working Group I

• Observation, monitoring of climate variables, reanalyses (ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere, land, freshwater, coasts), process understanding (water cycle, short-lived climate forcers and air quality, other climate system processes).

• Climate modeling (global, Earth System Models, regional, coupled, ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere, land, hydrology, chemistry and biogeochemistry) and model evaluation.

• Statistical climatology (trends, extremes, attribution, downscaling and bias correction, observation constraints, AI, …), recent global and regional trends.

• Near-term and long-term ensemble projections, storylines, emulators, uncertainties, carbon budget.

• Climate services and decision-support tools (experience working with stakeholders).

• High-impact climate outcomes and abrupt changes including tipping points, compounding and cascading events.

• Physical aspects of renewable resources (Energy, Water, …).

Working Group II

• Impacts, losses and damages on, and vulnerability and risk for natural (e.g. land, freshwater, biodiversity and oceans), human (e.g. human safety, mobility and migration, health, economic sectors, poverty, livelihoods, and cultural heritage), and managed human-natural systems with implications for climate resilient development.

• Evaluating climate change adaptation: Methods for monitoring, setting indicators, metrics and targets, measuring observed and projected policy effectiveness at multiple temporal and spatial scales.

• Scenarios and assessments of integrated adaptation, mitigation and development policies at multiple governance levels (local to multi-national) accounting for gender, equity, justice and/or Indigenous Knowledge, and local knowledges.

• Aggregation of information on impacts, vulnerability, adaptation and risks to settlements (rural, urban, cities, small islands), and infrastructure and systems (e.g. sanitation and hygiene, water, food, nutrition, economic and energy security, industry, health and well-being, mobility).

• Adaptation needs, options, opportunities, constraints, limits, enabling conditions, policy impacts and influencing factors including contributions from governance, finance, law, psychology and sociology.

• Global dimension of adaptation responses: financial incentivization, responding to losses and damages, equity, justice, finance and governance, etc.

• Socio-cultural, psychological, political and legal drivers of making and implementing decisions.

Working Group III

• Mitigation responses in energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture, forestry, land use and waste; Energy systems planning (including energy storage, demand side management, energy supply technologies, etc.).

• Cross-sectoral mitigation options covering land, coastal and ocean systems, including sector coupling, Carbon Dioxide Removal, Carbon Capture and Storage, Carbon Capture and Utilization, etc.

• Emission trends (consumption patterns, human behavior and emissions trends, including economic, sociological and cultural aspects).

• Scenarios and transitions at the global, national, regional and local scales.

• Governance (policies, institutions, agreements and instruments) at the international, national and subnational levels, including just transitions of sectors and systems.

• Mitigation and sustainable development (capacity building; technology innovation, transfer and adoption; related enabling conditions; international cooperation).

• Economic and financial aspects of mitigation options.

Cross-cutting areas of expertise

• Integration of different forms of climate-related knowledge and data, including Indigenous Knowledge, local knowledge, and practice-based knowledge.

• Regional (including terrestrial, ocean, and coastal) and sectoral climate information.

• Carbon Dioxide Removal, Solar Radiation Modification and associated Earth System impacts/feedbacks.

• Scenarios and pathways, including physical climate, impacts and adaptation, mitigation, development, feasibility and socio-cultural considerations (equity, ethics, finance).

• Co-benefits, avoided impacts, risks and co-costs of mitigation and adaptation, including: interactions and trade-offs, technological and financial challenges, options and implementation and low regret options.

• Ethics and equity dimensions of climate change, sustainable development, gender, poverty eradication, livelihoods, health, and food security.

Societal responses to spatial and temporal dimensions of risks and benefits of climate change, including sociological, financial, cultural and communication aspects.

While the final outlines for the Reports may not include all areas listed above, the IPCC solicits broad expertise in order to determine robust areas for consideration. In selecting scoping meeting participants, consideration will be given to the following criteria: scientific, technical and socio-economic expertise, including the range of views; geographical representation; a mixture of experts with and without previous experience in IPCC; gender balance; and experts with a background from relevant stakeholder and user groups, including practitioners, representatives from the private sector, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and governments.

How to nominate

The ISC invites its community to nominate relevant experts. All nominations should clearly indicate the field of expertise of the nominee. Please also note that the work of the Scoping Meeting will be conducted only in English.

As the ISC needs to review all nominations and upload them, please submit the completed nomination form together with a CV (maximum 4 pages) in English by 3 June 2024 to Katsia Paulavets, Senior Science Officer at katsia.paulavets@council.science.