On the way to the next draft for the IPCC report

The IPCC is preparing the sixth Assessment Report on impacts and adaptation of climate change, and lead authors are now at the equator of the process. The report will be ready in 2021, and meanwhile, long hours of meetings, discussions and drafts are taking place in the authors teams. The key events to advance in the chapter writing are the Lead Author Meetings (LAMs). After Durban and Kathmandu, this year the third LAM took place in Faro, Portugal. More than 250 scientists from around the globe get together for a full week and work on the assessment. This LAM has been key to address the external review comments on the previous chapters draft. Only the Oceans chapter received hundreds of comments to improve the assessment. In fact, this meeting is the first time we have the chapter review editors with the team of authors. For the Ocean and Coastal ecosystems chapter we had the great luck of having Lisa Levin from SCRIPPS with us.

From now to June, Lead Authors have to respond to the review comments and provide an improved draft that will be turned in during the summer, right on time for the final LAM, that will take place in Guatemala in November this year. Until then, Leading and Contributing authors will be working remotely to cover all the new scientific evidence on the impacts and adaptation to anthropogenic climate change. As science advances, so should policy and we expect these years to come to really place the oceans at the center of climate adaptation and mitigation action. In the picture you can see the Oceans chapter team at the meeting venue last January.