The 48th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-48) will meet from 1-5 October in Incheon, Republic of Korea, to consider and approve the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC (SR15).

The report, whose full name is ‘Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty,’ is being prepared under the joint scientific leadership of the three IPCC Working Groups (WGs) with support from WG I’s Technical Support Unite (TSU).

• Working Group I (WG 1) assesses the physical scientific aspects of climate change.
• Working Group II (WG II) addresses climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation.
• Working Group III (WG III) focuses on mitigating climate change.

The opening session of IPCC-48 will include statements by IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee, and representatives from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Government of the Republic of Korea.

Following the opening session, the first joint session of the three WGs, presided over by their Co-Chairs, will consider the SR’s Summary for Policymakers (SPM) line-by-line for approval. IPCC-48 will then resume to accept the SPM and the overall report.

IPCC-48 also has on its provisional agenda, inter alia:

• Ad Hoc Task Group on Financial Stability;
• organization of the future work of the IPCC in light of the global stocktake;
• IPCC Scholarship Programme; and
• progress reports on the International Conference on Climate Change and Cities, the Expert Meeting on Assessing Climate Information for Regions, the Expert Meeting on Short-Lived Climate Forcers, and the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

On 8 October, the SPM will be released during a press conference that will be streamed live.

About SR15

In its decision on the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 21) invited the IPCC to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission pathways.

An August 2016, a scoping meeting prepared the draft outline for the SR, following which IPCC-44, held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 17-20 October 2016, approved the report outline. An Expert Review of the First Order Draft of the SR15 ran from 31 July to 24 September 2017. The Government and Expert Review of the Second Order Draft of SR15 ran from 8 January to 25 February 2018.

For more, see our summary and analysis from IPCC-47.

About the Sixth Assessment Cycle

In 2015, IPCC-41 decided to produce a Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). IPCC-42 elected a new Bureau to oversee the AR6, as well as SRs to be produced during the sixth assessment cycle. In 2016, IPCC-43 decided to produce three SRs, a Methodology Report and the AR6.

• Methodology Report to refine the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventories will be delivered in May 2019.
• SR on Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems (SRCCL) will be approved in August 2019.
• Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) will be finalized in September 2019.
• The AR6 Synthesis Report (SYR) will be finalized in the first half of 2022.