Climate panel IPCC fails to agree on timing of next assessment report

A session ends without a timetable

The 65th plenary session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, known as Giec in French) closed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Friday, 16 October, without a decision on when its next assessment report will appear. The meeting followed a week of difficult talks that left countries deeply divided. France's ambassador in charge of climate negotiations, Benoît Faraco, attended the session and announced the outcome in a LinkedIn post that Friday evening, pointing to pressure from a few countries seeking to slow publication. The IPCC works under United Nations auspices and publishes assessment reports every five to seven years, which serve as the reference survey of climate science. Its experts are now preparing a seventh such report. The co-chairs of its working groups have proposed finalising it by the end of 2028, but the timing has split member states.

Pressure and the cost of delay

Faraco credited a broad coalition of developed and developing countries from all five continents with resisting pressure from a few states seeking to slow adoption of these reports. He said the coalition backed science and the timetable proposed by the scientists. He also argued the seventh report will play an essential role in shaping the next commitments, which are expected in 2028 and 2030. He stressed that the deadlock is not new, and he put it this way:

“This deadlock is not new and risks costing us precious time in our response to climate change.”

Countries split over 2028 and 2029

Some countries want the report published by 2028 so that it can inform the UN COP33 summit, which is due to produce the second global stocktake of climate efforts since the Paris Agreement. Those countries argue that policymakers would then have better information for taking ambitious measures. India, Saudi Arabia and China prefer publication in 2029, saying they need time to integrate new scientific data and work by researchers from developing countries. The IPCC's statement on Friday evening said the key agenda items, including the timetable and the budget, remain open and under discussion. It added that the 65th session will resume as soon as possible, so neither issue was settled when the meeting closed.