GENEVA, April 23 –
Experts and author teams of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) are meeting this week at the Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile, to
advance the first draft of the Working Group I contribution to the Seventh
Assessment Report (AR7). The Working Group I report covers the physical science
related to climate change.
The meeting, scheduled
from 21 to 24 April, is the second time the authors will be meeting in person
following the first meeting held jointly with Working Group II and III in Paris
in December 2025 where they began their work. The authors will meet two more
times during the report preparation process to develop and refine the draft in
line with IPCC’s principles and procedures.
“This is an important
milestone in the preparation of the Working Group I contribution to the Seventh
Assessment Report,” said IPCC Working Group I Co‑Chair Robert Vautard.
“Building on their
initial discussions in Paris, authors are now advancing the detailed scientific
assessment needed to develop a robust First Order Draft of our report. These scientific
exchanges are at the heart of the IPCC assessment process,” he added.
The Expert Review of
the First Order Draft of the Working Group I report is scheduled from 10 August
to 2 October 2026. In addition, as with all other IPCC reports, the Working
Group I report will undergo two further formal review stages, including a joint
review by governments and experts, before the final government review and approval
by IPCC member governments at the Panel’s plenary session prior to public
release.
“The multi‑stage review process ensures that
the report is comprehensive, balanced and policy‑relevant without being policy‑prescriptive.
This is how the IPCC builds trust in its assessments,” said IPCC Working Group
I Co‑Chair Xiaoye Zhang.
The author teams of the Working Group I
contribution to AR7 include 193 Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors and
Review Editors from 62 countries – 40% new to the IPCC process. 43% of these
experts are women, and 46% come from developing countries and economies in
transition including three from Chile.
For more information, contact:
IPCC Press Office, Email:
ipcc-media@wmo.int
;
Andrej Mahecic, +41 22 730 8516; Werani Zabula, +41 22 730 8120.
Notes for editors
What is the IPCC?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. In the same year the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by the WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC. It has 195 member states.
Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, experts volunteer their time as IPCC authors to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks.
The IPCC has three working groups:
Working Group I
, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change;
Working Group II
, dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and
Working Group III
, dealing with the mitigation of climate change. It also has a
Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals.
IPCC assessments provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC assessments are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. IPCC reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency.
About the Seventh Assessment Cycle
Comprehensive scientific assessment reports are published every 5 to 7 years. The IPCC is currently in its seventh assessment cycle, which formally began in July 2023 with the elections of the new
IPCC and Task Force Bureaus
at the IPCC’s Plenary Session in Nairobi.
At its first Plenary Session in the seventh assessment cycle – the 60th
Plenary Session in Istanbul, Türkiye, in January 2024 – the Panel agreed to
produce in this cycle the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh
Assessment Report (AR7), namely the Working Group I report on the Physical
Science Basis, the Working Group II report on Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability and the Working Group III report on Mitigation of Climate Change.
The Synthesis Report of the Seventh Assessment Report will be produced after
the completion of the Working Group reports and released by late 2029.
During its 62nd Plenary Session held in Hangzhou, China, in February
2025, the Panel has agreed on the outlines of the three Working Group
contributions to the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7).
At the Panel’s most recent Plenary Session in Lima, Peru, in October
2025, member governments agreed on the scientific content of the
2027 Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies,
Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage
. There, the Panel also agreed on
the 2026 workplan for the three Working Group contributions to the Seventh
Assessment Report.
The Panel decided already during the previous cycle to produce a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and a Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers during AR7.
At the IPCC’s 61st Plenary Session held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 27 July to 2 August 2024, the Panel agreed upon the outlines for the
Special Report on Climate Change and Cities
scheduled for approval and publication in March 2027 and for the
2027 IPCC Methodology Report on Inventories for Short-lived Climate Forcers
scheduled for publication in the second half 2027.
In addition, a revision of the 1994 IPCC Technical Guidelines on impacts
and adaptation as well as adaptation indicators, metrics and guidelines, will
be developed in conjunction with the Working Group II report and published as a
separate product.
IPCC’s latest report, the Sixth Assessment Report, was completed in March 2023 with the release of its Synthesis Report, which provided direct scientific input to the First Global Stocktake process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at COP28 in Dubai.
For more information
visit
www.ipcc.ch
.
— Source: IPCC (https://www.ipcc.ch/2026/04/23/ipcc-lam2-wgi-ar7/)