Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), was created to provide the global community with a policty-neutral source of expertise on human-related climate change.¹ The IPCC neither conducts research nor directly monitors climate data; it is tasked with comprehensive assessment of the latest climate-related research. As such, its primary activity is the production of special reports relevant to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

To date, the IPCC has produced four "Assessment Reports," released in 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007. The findings of the First IPCC Assessment Report led to the adoption  of the UNFCCC, which was first implemented in 1994. The 1997 development of the Kyoto Protocol relied on input from the IPCC's Second Assessment Report, released in 1995. The Third and Fourth IPCC Assessment Reports, released in 2001 and 2007, respectively, have provided further information helpful to the ongoing development of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and other climate initiatives.

The 2007 report was the first in which the IPCC asserted with "near certainty" (> 90% confidence) that we are already commited to centuries of continued warming on Earth as a direct result of human activities.² This report further predicted that a doubling of pre-industrial levels of atmospheric greenhouse cases would lead to an eventual increase of average global temperatures of 3.5 to 8 degrees celsius, causing a related increase in heat waves, violent weather, and extremes of temperature.

More than 2500 scientists from 130 countries contributed to the Fourth Assessment.³  In 2007, the IPCC, with former US Vice President Al Gore, was a joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.⁴

The IPCC has received both praise and blame for its work, with detractors citing both a perceived predisposition to blame human activity for global warming⁵ and a propensity to understate the risks related to climate change⁶ as shortcomings.