08 Aug 2019
11:15–12:30

Venue: World Meteorological Organization | Room A

Organization: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva Environment Network

At its 43rd Session (Nairobi, Kenya, 11 – 13 April 2016), the IPCC Panel decided to prepare a special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land

Experts met on 13 – 17 February 2017 in Dublin, Ireland to prepare a draft outline for the report.

At its 45th Session (Guadalajara, Mexico, 28 – 31 March 2017), the Panel approved the outline for Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

The Special Report is being developed under the joint scientific leadership of Working Groups I, II, III and the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, and supported by the WG III TSU.

103 experts from 52 countries were selected as Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors – who are working on  each individual chapter – and Review Editors, who will ensure that comments by experts and governments are given appropriate consideration as the report develops. The Special Report is scheduled to be finalized in August 2019.

The full list of Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors and Review Editors is here.

The Report Launch

A presentation of the Special Report, co-organized with UN Foundation within the framework of the Geneva Environment Network, took place at the World Meteorological Organization, Thursday 8 August, after the adoption of the report by the IPCC member states and its press lunch in Geneva. This event, held six weeks prior to the UN Secretary General Climate Summit, discussed the scaling-up of nature-based solutions to increase climate action and the oppotunities provided by the Summit.

This report shows that better land management can contribute to tackling climate change, but is not the only solution. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors is essential if global warming is to be kept to well below 2ºC, if not 1.5oC.

In 2015, governments backed the Paris Agreement goal of strengthening the global response to climate change by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5ºC.

Agenda

Welcome
Elena MANAENKOVA, Deputy Secretary-General , WMO
Jian LIU, Chief Scientist & Science Division Director, UN Environment Programme (& Moderator)

Introduction
Hoesung LEE, IPCC Chair

Key Findings from the SRCCL
Youba SOKONA, IPCC Vice-Chair
Valérie MASSON-DELMOTTE, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I
Panmao ZHAI, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I
Debra ROBERTS, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II
Jim SKEA, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III
Priyadarshi SHUKLA, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III
Eduardo CALVO, Co-Chair of the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

The SG Summit & Nature-Based Solutions
Mario BOCCUCCI, Secretariat Head, UN-REDD Programme

Q&A

Summary

The new IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land will be a key scientific input into forthcoming climate and environment negotiations, such as the Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (COP14) in New Delhi, India in September and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Santiago, Chile, in December.

This report shows that better land management can contribute to tackling climate change, but is not the only solution. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors is essential if global warming is to be kept to well below 2ºC, if not 1.5oC.

Land must remain productive to maintain food security as the population increases and the negative impacts of climate change on vegetation increase. This means there are limits to the contribution of land to addressing climate change, for instance through the cultivation of energy crops and afforestation. It also takes time for trees and soils to store carbon effectively. Bioenergy needs to be carefully managed to avoid risks to food security, biodiversity and land degradation. Desirable outcomes will depend on locally appropriate policies and governance systems.

Read the full press release…

At this event, Mario Boccucci highlighted how the message from the Special Report on Land makes it clear that smarter policies and practices for managing our lands, forests and agriculture are a crucial component of the climate emergency response. Furthermore they simultaneously deliver many other environmental, biodiversity, social and economic benefits and are therefore essential to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Nature Based Solutions is one of the key areas of the Climate Action Summit and as such leaders can send a powerful political message that the findings of the report have been well noted and commit to increase ambition and action. The report highlights the necessity to act swiftly and boldly to advance land based solutions.

The Climate Action Summit is the moment for bold action and greater ambition to manage, restore and protect the ecosystems. Adequate investment in NBS will help reduce financial consequences of climate change, and contribute to the creation of new jobs, to livelihood resilience and to reducing people’s poverty.

The report also recognizes the complexity of achieving the land system change at the required scale and pace. Mario pointed to a number of positive concrete policy, capacity and  finance signals and how nature based solutions are already being delivered around the world and are ready to exponential scale up with the right conditions.

Documents

Video

The event was live on Facebook.

Links