The meeting is the culmination of four years’ work by hundreds of experts who have volunteered their time and expertise to produce a comprehensive assessment. The IPCC member governments are gathering to approve the Summary for Policymakers of the third part of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), checking the text line by line. They will also accept the full report, which besides the Summary of Policymakers consists of a Technical Summary, 16 chapters and three annexes.

The Working Group III contribution to the AR5 deals with the mitigation of climate change. It sets out the technological, economic and institutional requirements and associated risks of climate change policies at the global, national and sub-national level, investigates mitigation measures for all major sectors, and assesses investment and finance issues. The first contribution, by Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change, was finalized in September 2013, with the full report published at the end of January 2014. The Working Group II contribution, assessing impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, was finalized in March this year. The Fifth Assessment Report will be completed by a Synthesis Report in October.

“Preventing dangerous interference with the climate system entails mitigating climate change,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair of Working Group III. “On a transparent scientific basis, our report provides an understanding of the available options to meet this challenge.”

Ottmar Edenhofer's opening statement for the meeting can be found here.

The meeting, hosted by the Government of Germany, runs from 7 to 11 April 2014. The Summary for Policymakers is due to be released on Sunday 13 April. The full report will also be released within two days, published online in September, and in book form a few months later.

“The approval process puts our report under close scrutiny. It ensures that our report presents state of the art research in a language and format that policymakers can use,” said Ramón Pichs-Madruga, one of the other Co-Chairs of Working Group III.

“In the Plenary, all countries can voice their concerns and all of them are heard. In the end, it is scientific accuracy that decides”, added Youba Sokona, Co-Chair of Working Group III.

The report builds on previous IPCC reports and assesses the wealth of literature on climate change mitigation that has emerged since the publication of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007,

For more information, contact:

IPCC Press Office, Email: [email protected]
Jonathan Lynn, + 49 30 6831 30241 or Nina Peeva, + 49 160 9941 0967

IPCC Working Group III Media Contact, Email:  [email protected]
Patrick Eickemeier, +49 331 288 24 30

Notes for editors

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.

Working Group III, which assesses the mitigation of climate change, is co-chaired by Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, Ramón Pichs-Madruga of the Centre for World Economy Studies of Havana, Cuba, and Youba Sokona, of the South Centre, Geneva, Switzerland. The Technical Support Unit of Working Group III is hosted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and funded by the Government of Germany.

At the 28th Session of the IPCC held in April 2008, the members of the IPCC decided to prepare a Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). A Scoping Meeting was convened in July 2009 to develop the scope and outline of the AR5. The resulting outlines for the three Working Group contributions to the AR5 were approved at the 31st Session of the IPCC in October 2009.

A total of 235 coordinating lead authors and lead authors and 38 review editors, from 57 countries, were selected to produce the Working Group III report. They enlisted the help of close to 200 contributing authors. More than 800 expert reviewers provided comments to earlier drafts of the report. In total, more than 38,000 review comments have been considered for the WGIII contribution. For the Fifth Assessment Report as a whole, a total of 832 authors and review editors were selected.

The Working Group III report consists of a Summary for Policymakers, Technical Summary, 16 chapters looking at framing issues, pathways for mitigating climate change and assessments of policies, institutions and finance, and three annexes.