The IPCC postpones until April 2021 the fourth report on mitigation of climate change by the coronavirus

Working Group III of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), dedicated to the scientific study of mitigation, has announced the postponement of its fourth study, which was scheduled for January 2021 until the end of April of that year.

The scientific body has reported on Wednesday a new schedule for the delivery of this fourth report of group III, which will be contributed to the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC on climate change (AR6) so that the final report is postponed because the pandemic caused by COVID-19 “continues to delay scientific work”.

This delay and other changes in the schedule of Group III mean that the report will not be approved before the Climate Summit in Glasgow (United Kingdom), known as COP26 that has also been postponed from November 2020 to the same month of 2021.

The calendar for the meeting of authors of the fourth report of group III has now been scheduled between April 12 and 30, when it was initially scheduled from January 11 to 15, 2021.

Among other changes to the mitigation group’s calendar, the final date for the publication of the scientific literature that will be included in the final report and that goes from September 19 to December 14, 2020 stands out.

The co-director of Working Group III, Jim Skea, has reported that these are the earliest possible dates to draw up a credible draft in terms of scientific rigor.”

Group III co-director Priyadarshi Shukla has also expressed his gratitude to the authors who continue their work on the report despite these “challenging conditions”. “This work is much more complicated by the impact of the pandemic on the international scientific community, which is delaying the production of scientific literature for evaluation in our report,” he added.

The third meeting of IPCC Working Group III was initially planned in the city of Quito (Ecuador) in April, but due to COVID-19 this meeting was postponed. A report of the technical support of group III of the month of July provides keys for the benefit of joint decisions in virtual meetings.

However, Working Group I, which analyses the physical science of the basis of climate change, has also extended its final data submission date and has also postponed its fourth meeting of authors and Group II on the impacts of climate change and adaptation has also postponed some final dates until the end of the year.

Source: Europe Press