It’s about to be a lot harder to keep countries honest about climate change

A delay in publishing a scientific report doesn’t usually have serious ramifications for the future of life on Earth. But an impasse between governments over when climate scientists should publish their next landmark assessment of climate change threatens to do just that. A critical meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was suspended on 16 October 16 without an agreement on when the results of its seventh assessment cycle – called AR7 – should be made public. Don’t be fooled by its less than catchy title. AR7 will consist of a series of high-profile scientific reports that will summarise the latest evidence on the threat posed by climate change, how countries should adapt and the emissions cuts needed to remain within safe climatic bounds. Its findings will make headlines around the world and create huge public and media pressure on countries to step up their efforts to fight climate change. Advertisement The meeting in Addis Ababa was a last-chance opportunity to ensure the findings of AR7 are published in time for a crucial UN-led “global stocktake” in 2028, when countries are due to evaluate global progress towards cutting emissions. This process takes place every five years and is meant to inform the next round of national climate goals that countries submit under the Paris Agreement. The regular stocktakes are designed to ratchet up pressure on countries to bolster their carbon-cutting ambition at regular intervals, closing the gap between projected global emissions and the “well below” 2°C international warming goal. The last global stocktake took place in 2023, just months after the IPCC had finished reporting the results of its last assessment, AR6. The COP28 summit in Dubai – which marked the culmination of the stocktake – resulted in an international commitment for countries to transition away from fossil fuels, plus new global targets to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency improvement rates by 2030. Would these targets have been set without the public pressure generated by the IPCC findings? Of course, countries can get information on the state of the climate, and the measures needed to mitigate and adapt to a warming world, from places other than the IPCC. The deluge of journal articles, summary reports and UN papers provide no shortage of data and analysis for those who want to find it, for the global stocktake or any other purpose. But an IPCC report has gravitas other missives can’t match, and generates the media interest that puts climate change at the forefront of public consciousness ahead of COP summits. Without a headline-grabbing IPCC report, countries will be under far less pressure to make fresh climate commitments. “It impedes global ambition,” says Richard Allan at the University of Reading and a lead author for AR7. So why the delay? A small group of countries, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, are arguing that developing countries need more time to properly review the IPCC findings before publication. Their tactics mirror those used in climate summit negotiating rooms, where fossil-fuel dependent countries have for years sought to delay and obstruct proceedings to slow international action on cutting emissions. “It’s obviously a delaying tactic,” says Bob Watson, a former chair of the IPCC. “Those countries that want action fundamentally want these reports before this global stocktake. Those countries that don’t want action […] they don’t want to see those reports because they know what they’ll say is we’re not on target for 1.5°C or even 2°C”. It’s now looking increasingly unlikely that the IPCC will be able to agree on a publication timetable that will align with the global stocktake. In a statement published on Monday, IPCC chair Jim Skea said he will reconvene the meeting “at the earliest opportunity” to push for a decision. A likely outcome now is that a report on the science of climate change – the least contentious of the three parts – may arrive in May 2028, with two reports, which assess adaptation and mitigation, published the following year. “It is an unhelpful fracturing of the process,” says Gareth Redmond-King at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a UK think tank focused on climate and energy. Without the IPCC underscoring the urgency of the crisis, there’s a risk that “countries can behave as though the pressure is eased”, he warns.