Ever wondered how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) generates its influential – often headline-making – climate reports? We caught up with José Antonio Puppim De Oliveira, GDI’s Professor of Climate Change Governance and Global Development, to discuss his participation in creating the IPCC’s upcoming Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. Having attended some of the initial report meetings, José reflects on the rigorous process and what the report could mean for policymakers and others working to protect cities around the world as climate change intensifies.
How did you get involved with the report meeting? How does it relate to your previous research?
This Climate Change and Cities report has been in discussion for almost ten years, after a group of scholars and practitioners pushed for the IPCC to focus on the topic. Following this initial proposal, a few meetings were arranged to discuss the purpose and content of the report, one of which I attended in Canada in 2018.
I was invited to get involved as the report aligns closely with work I’ve been doing on how cities and local governments respond to climate change, both in terms of adaptation and mitigation. I’ve been focused on this topic for around 20 years, so am well-placed to discuss how local governments have been implementing policies around issues such as waste management, sanitation, and climate change. I’m particularly interested in how governments develop their capacity for innovative policies that allow them to try new things – an especially crucial capability in tackling climate change.
This report is a so-called Special Report, meaning it’s a bit different from the traditional IPCC reports we often read about, insofar as it involves practitioners as well as scientists. While Assessment Reports provide a summary of the latest scientific evidence on climate change, Special Reports zone in on a particular issue and look at potentially actionable ideas.
Why the focus on cities and what other aspects of climate risk does the IPCC assess?
Cities across the world face a host of different risks that will likely intensify as the world heats up. The report therefore aims to look at potential solutions that support policymakers to build capacity and make decisions that will help cities cope with climate change, both in terms of adaptation and mitigation. Issues we will cover include finance, technology, governance, and more – it’s very wide-ranging.
As I mentioned, Special Reports go beyond assessments that only describe the current state of things. Our report aims to lay out some of the potential practicalities involved with protecting cities from climate change. It will not be prescriptive, but will equip governments, companies, and civil society with rigorous and evidence-based guidance about potential ways to optimise climate policy and strategies.
How will you evaluate risks and what factors will you consider when thinking about potential solutions/mitigation recommendations?
Another difference between this report and other IPCC reports is that it doesn’t divide the chapters according to adaptation and mitigation strategies. There will be five chapters, all of which address different aspects of mitigation and adaptation and assess particular risks, examining how such risks are being addressed by different cities around the world.
I’m leading a chapter that looks at solutions – both their facilitation and the speed at which they should be deployed to mitigate risks in future. Lots of solutions exist at the moment but putting them into action quickly is a significant challenge.
Who are you working with on this report (i.e., what kinds of interdisciplinary knowledge do your colleagues possess)?
The authors come from a range of very diverse backgrounds in terms of discipline, experience, country, and role. As I mentioned before, this report is unusual in welcoming input from a lot of practitioners, helping to make the report as actionable as possible. For example, we have everyone from finance experts to practitioners working on the report, as well as scientists with wide-ranging specialisms. Each chapter will include contributions from people from all over the world and with very different backgrounds – that’s the beauty of the project, really. By allowing people to apply their unique lenses to the same problem, the IPCC’s process facilitates dynamic interaction between a truly interdisciplinary team. In the end, this approach will help scholars and practitioners produce the best knowledge cities need to deal with climate change.
What were some of the key outcomes from the meeting? Is the experience what you expected, and do you have any reflections on the process?
The meeting was very intense, comprising a whole week of discussions. At this stage, the main objective was to get to know each other and each other’s work. I already know a few people involved in the report, but most I have never met before. So, the meeting was a good opportunity to build a sense of team spirit and to start framing the report.
We have a general scoping from which to work, but this meeting provided the opportunity to plan the structure of the chapters. As a result, we now know which authors are working on different chapters and sections, which will help us generate a cohesive initial piece of work – also known as a zero draft. When our second meeting rolls around, we’re going to reflect on whether our initial structure is working and how authors are getting on with different sections of the report.
What are the steps involved with generating the report? What happens now that the meeting has concluded?
Creating the report will require several rounds of revisions, with the fourth and final version of the report set for publication in 2027. The first version – the zero draft – will be assessed and reviewed by both us and a panel of external reviewers. The second version will again be evaluated by external reviewers, as well as a set of experts we invite to review the report. The third draft will be assessed and reviewed by governments, who will provide very detailed comments on the report. We will then use all this feedback to create a polished and very rigorous report.
Naturally, the report will be subject to a lot of scrutiny, especially regarding the extent to which we can comment on policy. IPCC reports are designed to avoid prescriptivism, so we need to ensure the material we produce provides helpful material that informs policy but does not make direct recommendations. While this can be tricky for some authors, this aligns with the IPCC’s methodology that they have developed over the years.
As an author, I am bound to this methodology in which every meeting provides a space to reflect carefully on comments and incorporate helpful critique from several reviewers at once. While heeding commentary from a diverse array of academics, practitioners, and government representatives can be challenging, it helps to give the report a good deal of legitimacy. Previous IPCC reports have been known to rack up thousands – even hundreds of thousands of comments and suggested revisions – so there’s no doubt about how rigorous the work is that goes into producing such documents. I look forward to future meetings in which I can discuss reviews and comments, cooperating with a diverse community of experts to help produce a report that supports real and urgent change in cities across the world.
Read more about the Climate Change and Cities Report
Chapter 1, Cities in the context of climate change, is being led by Professor Shuaib Lwasa, who is also the director of urban research at GDI’s African Cities Research Consortium.
Note: This article gives the views of the author/academic featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the Global Development Institute as a whole.
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