My Vision for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The challenge ahead of us

The IPCC has never been more important than it is now.

The world is a third of the way through the Decade of Action and policymakers take daily decisions that affect people, nature and the climate. Meanwhile, emissions and temperatures continue to rise, and climate change impacts devastate lives and livelihoods.

The Sixth Assessment cycle has transformed the IPCC. We have built on the excellent work in the previous cycles to become more relevant and visible than ever before.

In the next assessment period, our work must provide the scientific evidence for swift, actionable solutions and vital information for decision-makers on what these solutions cost, and how feasible and effective they will be in different environments and communities.

We need to enable science to be translated directly into a series of options for policymaking and action.

To protect the core values of the IPCC – we need to stay independent of politics and other pressures and uphold our scientific integrity. The people that work at, and with, the IPCC need effective leadership that brings everyone’s voices to the table, producing world-class scientific products while maintaining a healthy and effective working environment, empowering all contributors to deliver their best work for the critical upcoming cycle.

My priorities for the IPCC

What matters now is the IPCC Chair having the right experience for the task we face this decade. Right now, the task at hand is implementation.

This is why I am stepping forward for Chair of the AR7 cycle: uniquely, I am a scientist with a strong academic profile working at the science-policy interface. I understand what it’s like to deal with climate change in a very practical sense, with extensive experience across natural science, adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity planning and management, and sustainable development and resilience. As a scientist with three decades leading on-the-ground policy and practice, I am viewing this as a singular moment in time where I will be of greatest service to the IPCC and its members. I believe I am best-suited for the task collectively facing us right now.

Thirty years of experience across science, policy and practice means I bring a practical approach to the science – always asking what is most useful to the decision-makers who need to make evidence-led judgements about which options to implement.     

If past assessments have looked at the why and what of climate change, we now have an urgent need to provide evidence for the how.

Policymakers need detailed, rigorous and practical answers on how we mitigate and adapt to climate change, by when, where and by whom.

To achieve this, we need to:

1. Strengthen the foundations of the IPCC

Firstly, I want to build on the progress we have made by securing a more equitable and inclusive foundation for the IPCC to ensure delivery of first-class science.

To produce good science at pace, we need to be operating at our best, and I want to make sure the IPCC ’s operation is strong enough to deliver against its growing scientific mandate. I have learned that the best outcomes come from working together, prioritising equity and shared responsibility. If elected, I want to work alongside the IPCC Vice-Chairs in a Steering Committee, building a strong, unified and expert leadership team. I hope to create better integration between the three working groups with the TFI (Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories) and TG-Data (Task Group on Data Support for Climate Change Assessments), to deliver even more integrated and policy-relevant products.

The IPCC ’s mandate means it can be a high-pressure work environment, and I want to create a culture and working practices that support our people through respectful and supportive leadership: excellent science requires a happy and healthy team. We can safeguard the welfare of authors and Technical Support Units by advancing our work on diversity, equity and inclusion. Championing gender parity and the inclusion of more early-career scientists in the work of the IPCC is also a priority.

2. Maintain and enhance the IPCC ’s scientific leadership.

The IPCC stands for gold-standard scientific leadership. I want to build on this so that policymakers and practitioners are armed with world-class evidence based on the most comprehensive knowledge across geographies and academic disciplines.

The phenomenal efforts from years of work from the global research community have led to a dramatic increase in available climate change literature, which has increased the workloads of our volunteer scientists to the point that maintaining our status as the ultimate comprehensive assessment process for this vital field is put at risk.

We can address this challenge by working with groups such as the AI community, providing authors with practical support so that they can expand the volume of literature they draw on without sacrificing the timelines we must adhere to. We additionally need to draw on a wider base of knowledge, such as practitioner knowledge, Indigenous Knowledge and literature in non-English languages if we are to provide evidence that drives action on the ground. We can also improve our processes and outputs by building stronger links with organisations such as the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) , United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ( IPBES ) and UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and encourage ongoing support from the scientific community by engaging the science academies around the world.

3. Supply increasingly useful work that empowers ambitious action.

Thirdly, I want to provide governments with tangible options so that the IPCC ’s work can inform more real-world decisions than ever before. There is a proven and popular need for the IPCC to provide more regional evidence and expertise, so our work is even more useful for policymakers and practitioners who need to understand the reality and options for their state or region.

My experience as a practitioner-scientist means I am clearly acquainted with what that takes: for example, governments are faced with the very real need to understand the implications of both climate change variability and climate change in their region in the next five years, not only the impact of climate change over the next century – and they need evidence on what they can do this year to protect their citizens and improve their way of life.

Special Reports allow us to move faster, enabling more real-world decisions to be informed by the best and latest scientific knowledge. They can specifically address topics requested by the Panel, be highly relevant to policy decisions and encourage Working Groups to collaborate.

A greater focus on Special Reports could reinvigorate the science community and refresh the IPCC, while answering the call from our member states and requests made to us via multilateral processes.

Continuing to improve regional evidence and the use of regional expertise through a broader base of nominations will also enhance the scientific leadership of the IPCC and create a more balanced and equitable assessment.

The IPCC is a profoundly influential body that has shaped how the world understands climate change. Now, the challenge ahead is to provide governments with the evidence that supports ambitious climate and sustainable development action.

It would be a privilege to use my experience at the interface of science, policy and practice to lead the IPCC through its vital Seventh Assessment Cycle.