Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ), the Germans often referred to as the IPCC, was launched in November 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP ) and the World Meteorological Organization ( WMO) is an intergovernmental institution to life by for policy makers to summarize the state of scientific research. Its first chairman was the Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin. The main task of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Associate Committee is to assess the risks of global warming as well as to gather mitigation and adaptation strategies. The seat of the IPCC Secretariat is located in Geneva ( Switzerland ).

The organization was founded in 2007, awarded jointly with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore with the Nobel Peace Prize. Since 2002, the Indian economist Rajendra Kumar Pachauri is the chairman of the IPCC.

• 6.1 PBL report for the fourth IPCC assessment report
• 6.2 " leaks " in the fifth IPCC assessment report

Overview

The IPCC does not itself research, but transmits the results of research in the various disciplines, including especially the climatology. It provides a coherent overview of this material in so-called progress reports, the IPCC Assessment Reports. The IPCC reports are created in working groups and approved in plenary session. Each participating researchers can bring to three successive versions of comments, criticisms and suggestions. More than a hundred researchers have done this; Independent Review Editors note whether the final version of all due consideration.

• 2001 - in the ' Third Assessment Report ' and
• 2007 - in the ' Fourth Assessment Report '

Made the oft-quoted IPCC statements about future climate changes. These statements are based on many years the dominant political and scientific discussions about global warming.

Tasks

The tasks of the IPCC include:

• Examining the risk of human-induced climate change ( global warming)
• Representation of the current state of knowledge on various aspects of human-induced climate change;
• Estimating the impact of global warming on the environment and society;
• Formulating realistic mitigation or adaptation strategies and
• Promoting the participation of developing and transition countries in the IPCC activities.

Organization

The IPCC is organized into three Working Groups and a Task Force:

• Working Group I assesses the scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change.
• Working Group II addresses the vulnerability of socio-economic and ecological systems to climate change.
• Working Group III deals with measures to mitigate climate change.
• A task force is concerned with the development of methodologies and standardization of processes, for example in the collection of emissions data of greenhouse gases in the individual countries.

Two Co - Chairman and Vice- Chairman of six coordinated the work in each of the three working groups.

Reports

The IPCC publishes reports into four categories:

• Progress reports ( assessment reports )
• Special reports (special reports )
• Technical reports (technical papers ) and
• Methodological reports ( methodology papers ).

Progress reports

Special Reports

By the year 2009, the IPCC has issued a total of 10 special reports. The most popular are published in 2000 on land use, land use change and forestry and to the emission scenarios used in the third and fourth assessment report published in 2005, and the special report on the capture and storage of carbon dioxide.

In April 2011, the IPCC published a special report on renewable energy. A special report on "Management of the risk of extreme events and disasters to promote adaptation to climate change " ( SREX ) was published in March 2012.

Budget

The work of the IPCC is supported by the IPCC Trust Fund. In 2009, the IPCC for its work approximately CHF 6.9 million or the equivalent of 5.3 million euros spent. With these funds the participation of experts from developing countries (eg through travel grants) and the publication and translation of IPCC reports is financed in particular.

The IPCC Trust Fund receives for one regular grants from the founding organizations, UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization and the UNFCCC ( United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ) and other voluntary contributions from Member States. The latter in 2009 amounted to 441,772 CHF for example from Germany, Austria from 30 151 CHF 100,000 CHF 1,578,900 CHF from Switzerland and the USA.

Controversies

The work of the IPCC is considered in the context of a controversy about global warming critical, with him playing down partly, partly accuse different pages exaggeration. After an error in the IPCC report had noticed about the speed of the expected glacier melt in the Himalayas in 2007, calls for reform of the panel and its control mechanisms were loud. Against this background, asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki -Moon, the InterAcademy Council (IAC ), an international association of science academies, with an examination of the work of the IPCC. The IAC subsequently lodged in the summer of 2010 a report. In it, he certified that the IPCC good job, while making several recommendations for reform. In addition to the establishment of a management team was, inter alia, proposed to give the IPCC Secretariat an Executive Director.

• In early 2010 signed 277 Dutch scientists an open letter in which she defended the IPCC and protested against the discrediting of climate research in the public debate. To view the error in the fourth IPCC report, there had been a "disproportionate excitement " ( disproportionate commotion ). Although the IPCC is not infallible, but his working methods were " transparent and carefully " (transparent and thorough ). The basic results of the IPCC would remain valid despite the error. At the same time, the scientists demanded that the Panel should acknowledge even faster in the future errors.

• 2011 called for the former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in a speech to the Max Planck Society, an examination of the work of the IPCC by a top scientific organization. The "by some governments publicly stated objectives " had been " less scientific rather than merely political" reasons.

• The Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council on Global Change, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the IPCC describes as a " strange hybrid creatures ", which was conceived jointly by politics and science. He criticized the fact that not the lead authors for the IPCC reports selects the " global community of relevant researchers ", but the countries involved in the report. It is not the lead authors who decide on the wording of the summary of their reports, but political representatives of their respective governments. Schellnhuber criticized that only these abstracts are taken from the " decision makers " global note.

• Conflicts of interest were discussed earlier because of political influence on the final editing of the summaries. Thus, in the context of the fourth assessment report known that some governments (including the U.S. and China) have established a significant weakening of the draft report submitted by the scientists.

PBL report for the fourth IPCC assessment report

Against the background of the debate on error in the fourth IPCC assessment report, the Dutch Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer commissioned on 29 January, the National Environmental Agency PBL, a comprehensive assessment of ( listed in the synthesis Band) 32 conclusions on the regional impacts of global warming and the Chapter underlying of Working Group II to make. The published on 5 July 2010 PBL report came to the conclusion that the conclusions in the synthesis band would not be undermined by errors found. However, several conclusions contained statements that have no basis in the chapters or the sources cited there. Also isolated inadmissible generalizations and a lack of transparency and credibility of sources had occurred. Thus, the IPCC concluded by a decline in earnings in millet, groundnut and cowpea in Niger to declining crop yields in the Sahel, and from declining cattle productivity in Argentina due to declining livestock productivity in South America. Overall slight deficiencies in five and severe defects in three of the 32 conclusions were noted.

The PBL report was the overall conclusion that the conclusions of the fourth IPCC report would continue to be permitted and a total well-founded. In addition to the errors has been criticized that in the summary of results of Working Group II in the synthesis band picked negative forecasts and positive forecasts had not been made without clarify this " risk-based " selection sufficiently.

" Leaks " in the fifth IPCC assessment report

In December 2012, the blogger and climate skeptics Alec Rawls published without authorization a preliminary version of the fifth progress report on the Internet. By registering as an external reviewer for the IPCC, he had secured access to it. From a set that the influence of cosmic rays is not yet fully understood, he concluded that this random current air conditioning theory to falter. Various experts disagreed. The key message was the opposite, that the influence of cosmic radiation was probably negligible. Overall, the evidence for anthropogenic global warming would have compressed (the probability estimation for it now amounts to 95 % instead of 90 % in the last report). Also, the expected sea level rise will probably revised upwards.

Beginning of November 2013 came again a draft version of the IPCC report (Part 2 ) to the public. Because of the " leak " was from various sides (including InterAcademy Council, KNMI, some scientists involved ) required to make the whole design process publicly.