The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a Call for experts to participate in the Scoping Meeting for the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report (AR7). The IPCC Focal Point for Italy invites expressions of interest from national experts to participate in the meeting.

Photo by Bence Balla-Schottner on Unsplash

*Note for Italian speakers: Poiché tutti i lavori riguardanti i Report dell’IPCC si svolgono in lingua inglese, così come tutti i materiali da fornire per proporre la propria candidatura sono richiesti in lingua inglese, tutte le comunicazioni ufficiali dell’IPCC Focal Point per l’Italia relative alla manifestazione di interesse saranno in lingua inglese.

Nominations submitted by the Focal point for Italy need to be received by Friday 31 May 2024 (midnight CEST) in order to be submitted in time to the IPCC. (Nominations need to be submitted by the Focal point to the IPCC by Friday, 7 June 2024.)

A webinar for experts in Italy to explain the scoping process and present the details of the call will take place on May 17, 2024, 14:30 – 15:30 CEST. (More information on the webinar at this link).

To develop the outline of the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), a Scoping Meeting will be held tentatively in December 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The exact date of the meeting will be communicated upon confirmation.

The Scoping Meeting will result in a draft Scoping Paper describing the objectives and annotated outlines of the three Working Group Reports (including the update of the 1994 IPCC Technical Guidelines on Adaptation in conjunction with the Working Group II Report), as well as the process and timeline for their preparation, which will then be considered by the IPCC during the 62nd Session of the Panel in the first quarter of 2025.

For nominations for participation in Scoping Meetings, consideration is given to the following criteria: scientific, technical and socio-economic expertise, including the range of views; geographical representation; a mixture of experts with and without previous experience in IPCC; gender balance; experts with a background from relevant stakeholder and user groups, including practitioners, representatives from the private sector, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and governments.

A more detailed description of the IPCC Procedures for the preparation, review, acceptance, adoption, approval and publication of IPCC Reports is available on the IPCC website.

Participants in the Scoping Meeting should have a broad understanding of climate change and related issues, and should collectively have expertise in the following areas:

Working Group I 

• Observation, monitoring of climate variables, reanalyses (ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere, land, freshwater, coasts), process understanding (water cycle, short-lived climate forcers and air quality, other climate system processes). 
• Climate modeling (global, Earth System Models, regional, coupled, ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere, land, hydrology, chemistry and biogeochemistry) and model evaluation. 
• Statistical climatology (trends, extremes, attribution, downscaling and bias correction, observation constraints, AI, …), recent global and regional trends. 
• Near-term and long-term ensemble projections, storylines, emulators, uncertainties, carbon budget. 
• Climate services and decision-support tools (experience working with stakeholders). 
• High-impact climate outcomes and abrupt changes including tipping points, compounding and cascading events. 
• Physical aspects of renewable resources (Energy, Water, …). 

Working Group II 

• Impacts, losses and damages on, and vulnerability and risk for natural (e.g. land, freshwater, biodiversity and oceans), human (e.g. human safety, mobility and migration, health, economic sectors, poverty, livelihoods, and cultural heritage), and managed human-natural systems with implications for climate resilient development. 
• Evaluating climate change adaptation: Methods for monitoring, setting indicators, metrics and targets, measuring observed and projected policy effectiveness at multiple temporal and spatial scales. 
• Scenarios and assessments of integrated adaptation, mitigation and development policies at multiple governance levels (local to multi-national) accounting for gender, equity, justice and/or Indigenous Knowledge, and local knowledges. 
• Aggregation of information on impacts, vulnerability, adaptation and risks to settlements (rural, urban, cities, small islands), and infrastructure and systems (e.g. sanitation and hygiene, water, food, nutrition, economic and energy security, industry, health and well-being, mobility). 
• Adaptation needs, options, opportunities, constraints, limits, enabling conditions, policy impacts and influencing factors including contributions from governance, finance, law, psychology and sociology. 
• Global dimension of adaptation responses: financial incentivization, responding to losses and damages, equity, justice, finance and governance, etc. 
• Socio-cultural, psychological, political and legal drivers of making and implementing decisions. 

Working Group III 

• Mitigation responses in energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture, forestry, land use and waste; Energy systems planning (including energy storage, demand side management, energy supply technologies, etc.). 
• Cross-sectoral mitigation options covering land, coastal and ocean systems, including sector coupling, Carbon Dioxide Removal, Carbon Capture and Storage, Carbon Capture and Utilization, etc. 
• Emission trends (consumption patterns, human behavior and emissions trends, including economic, sociological and cultural aspects). 
• Scenarios and transitions at the global, national, regional and local scales. 
• Governance (policies, institutions, agreements and instruments) at the international, national and subnational levels, including just transitions of sectors and systems. 
• Mitigation and sustainable development (capacity building; technology innovation, transfer and adoption; related enabling conditions; international cooperation). 
• Economic and financial aspects of mitigation options. 

Cross-cutting areas of expertise 

• Integration of different forms of climate-related knowledge and data, including Indigenous Knowledge, local knowledge, and practice-based knowledge. 
• Regional (including terrestrial, ocean, and coastal) and sectoral climate information. 
• Carbon Dioxide Removal, Solar Radiation Modification and associated Earth System impacts/feedbacks. 
• Scenarios and pathways, including physical climate, impacts and adaptation, mitigation, development, feasibility and socio-cultural considerations (equity, ethics, finance). 
• Co-benefits, avoided impacts, risks and co-costs of mitigation and adaptation, including: interactions and trade-offs, technological and financial challenges, options and implementation and low regret options. 
• Ethics and equity dimensions of climate change, sustainable development, gender, poverty eradication, livelihoods, health, and food security.
• Societal responses to spatial and temporal dimensions of risks and benefits of climate change, including sociological, financial, cultural and communication aspects. 

Regional Expertise 

• Africa 
• Europe 
• Asia 
• Australasia 
• North America 
• Central and South America 
• Polar regions 
• Small Islands 
• Ocean

How to apply 

The IPCC Focal Point for Italy invites expressions of interest from national experts to participate in the scoping of this IPCC Assessment Report and will submit nominations meeting the expertise criteria and minimum application standards to the IPCC official platform. The selection of participants will be carried out by the IPCC Bureau.

To be considered for participation, please follow these steps: 

• Download the .xlsx form from this link
• Fill the Excel nomination form (please note that the form has two tabs);
• Send an email message to: ipcc.fp@cmcc.it including
  • Excel nomination form filled in all the required fields
  • an updated CV (2 to 4 pages – max file size is 2MB – .pdf format)
• Send the nomination form and CV to ipcc.fp@cmcc.it in .xlsx and .pdf format respectively, by Friday, 31 May 2024 (midnight CEST).

Nominations that do not follow these instructions will not be considered in the selection process.

For those authors whose candidature will be accepted by the IPCC Bureau, please note that the costs for participating in the Scoping Meeting will need to be covered by the participant’s affiliated institution.

“Open Hour” webinar

The IPCC Focal Point for Italy will host an “Open Hour” webinar on Friday, May 17, at 14:30-15:30 CET to introduce the call and clarify all aspects of the nomination process. The webinar will be hosted by Anna Pirani, CMCC and Focal Point alternate for Italy, who also served as executive editor of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and the AR6 Working Group I 2021 Climate Report on the physical science basis of climate change and was an author of the IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report.

Erika Coppola from ICTP and Monica Salvia from CNR – IMAA, who attended the scoping meeting for the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, and Valentina Bosetti from CMCC, who attended the scoping meeting of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) in 2017, will join the open hour webinar to share their experiences. During the webinar, we will discuss what a scoping meeting consists of, how this is part of the preparation of an IPCC report,  the selection process, and participation in the scoping meeting.

The webinar will include a Q&A session and is open to all.

To join the webinar please register here.