Charles Lin, Brian Gray, Francis Zwiers, Patti Edwards
Science and Technology Branch, Environment Canada
Contact: Charles.Lin@ec.gc.ca
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1988 with the purpose of providing objective information on the causes of climate change, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences and the adaptation and mitigation options to respond to it. Over the past 20 years, the IPCC has provided this objective information through four major assessment reports and a series of technical and special reports that has been instrumental in shaping the international policy response to the challenge of global climate change. With the completion of the Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, which very clearly concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal and very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the IPCC needs to scope out future activities to remain policy relevant while remaining firmly rooted in its core function: science assessment. This talk will illustrate how the IPCC has been at the forefront of science-policy interface over the past 20 years and suggest ways in which the IPCC can keep itself policy-relevant over the next 20 years.