20.10.26
By: Cecilia Keating, Robert McSweeney, Ayesha Tandon
Countries have failed – for the sixth time running – to agree on the timeline for publishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next set of influential reports.
The IPCC’s 65th session (IPCC-65) was seen by many to be the final opportunity for countries to agree on a schedule where its seventh assessment report (AR7) would be published in time for the UN’s second “global stocktake” of climate action.
Before last week’s meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, IPCC chair Prof Sir Jim Skea had warned that releasing the reports in time for the stocktake in 2028 would depend on a timeline being agreed by the end of 2026.
But the week-long meeting descended into fraught disagreements between governments, resulting in Skea “suspending” the talks on Friday evening with no decision made.
Countries were also unable to agree on the IPCC’s budget for the rest of the AR7 cycle, leaving the body with a “serious funding crisis”.
The IPCC has pledged to reconvene the meeting at the “earliest opportunity”; however, it has not yet given an indication of when this will be.
In his concluding remarks, Skea described the Addis Ababa summit as a “profound disappointment” and “among the most difficult IPCC meetings”, according to reporting from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Some countries have reacted with dismay to the breakdown of negotiations, warning that a failure to have the IPCC’s latest assessments on climate adaptation and mitigation ready for the UN stocktaking exercise would undermine global climate action.
A climate envoy from a Pacific island state said it was a “travesty that a handful of countries continue to delay the IPCC’s reports – the science we need back home to help us save lives and livelihoods”.
Below, Carbon Brief explores the key developments, debates and disagreements at the IPCC meeting.
- What timeline options were delegates debating?
- How did the timeline discussions unfold?
- What were the main points of disagreement?
- Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
- How have scientists reacted?
- What other issues remain unresolved?
- How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
- How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
What timeline options were delegates debating?
Top of the agenda during the Addis Ababa meeting was a decision on the timeline of the publication of AR7’s three working group reports – also known as the “work plan”. The three reports cover climate science (WG1), impacts and adaptation (WG2) and mitigation (WG3).
Countries failed to reach a resolution on the scheduling of the influential reports at five consecutive IPCC meetings since 2024 – despite drafting being well underway.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s write-up of discussions in Istanbul, Sofia, Hangzhou, Lima and Bangkok.)
Reporting from the ENB from inside these meetings has highlighted that countries are split, broadly, into two groups – those that want all three reports to be published in time for the UN’s second “global stocktake” in 2028, and those that one, or more, to be published afterwards.
A key pillar of the Paris Agreement, the global stocktake is a formal assessment of the world’s collective progress on tackling climate change. The exercise is designed to guide future global climate action, including decisions on national emissions targets and climate finance.
The second global stocktake is due to culminate in late 2028 at the COP33 climate summit.
The Addis Ababa meeting was the final IPCC plenary where countries would be able to agree on a stocktake-aligned timeline. In April, Skea told Carbon Brief that publishing reports by the end of 2028 would only be possible if a decision was taken before the end of 2026.
India, Kenya, Russia and Saudi Arabia have emerged as among the loudest voices calling for a timeline where the IPCC’s latest assessment of climate impacts and mitigation are published after the stocktake. They have argued that developing countries need more time to prepare, review and approve working group reports.
A coalition of developed nations and small-island developing states, meanwhile, have argued in favour of all three reports being published in time for the stocktake, so that the latest climate science can inform future climate action.
(For more on the standoff around the reports and why it matters for climate action, read Carbon Brief’s explainer.)
Ahead of the Addis Ababa meeting, the IPCC’s secretariat, on behalf of Skea, published a document setting out three options for a timeline for the working group reports. These are summarised below.
| Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 | ||||
| Proposal set out by working group co-chairs at IPCC-61 in Sofia. | Revisited proposal presented by working-group co-chairs at IPCC-63 in Lima. | Submissions by India and Saudi Arabia to a survey sent out by IPCC in 2026. | ||||
| Report approval | Plenary | Proposed month of approval | Plenary | Proposed month of approval | Plenary | Proposed month of approval |
| Working Group 1 | IPCC-69 | May 2028 | IPCC-69 | May 2028 | IPCC-69 | May 2028 |
| Working Group 2 | IPCC-70 | June 2028 | IPCC-70 | July 2028 | IPCC-71 | April 2029 |
| Working Group 3 | IPCC-71 | July 2028 | IPCC-71 | Sept 2028 | IPCC-72 | July 2029 |
Source: Table 1 and Appendix A in “Work plan of the IPCC seventh assessment report”, IPCC.
Over several days of fraught talks in Addis Ababa, the number of timeline options in contention ballooned to seven – before being reduced down to four.
How did the timeline discussions unfold?
On Monday, Skea established a “contact group”, chaired by Brazil and Ireland, to focus on the timeline issue.
By Friday morning, the group reported back to the plenary that they were still a “long way from consensus”, according to the ENB.
By that afternoon, four options still remained – the three set out by the IPCC ahead of the meeting and a fourth, proposed by Haiti, which would see WG1 approval in April 2028, WG2 in July 2028 and WG3 in October 2028.
The IPCC’s secretariat subsequently presented a “draft decision” for the timeline issue to plenary, informed by the contact group’s work. The text did not establish a formal decision on the timeline, but presented a number of options for how the IPCC could move forward on the issue, as well as proposals for addressing inclusivity concerns.
Two out of three options suggested that IPCC co-chairs continue work on reports in 2027 “without prejudging the panel’s agreement on the timing of the respective approval sessions” and for timeline discussions to be continued at a future session.
Another suggestion was that the IPCC fund a second delegate for developing countries and “economies in transition” for future approval sessions.
After one delegation said they were uncertain how to engage with the draft text, Skea clarified the text had three elements – a preamble, timeline and a section on inclusivity and avenues for providing input.
He said that “it was clear the panel would not be able to take a decision on the timeline at IPCC-65” and explained the idea was to include the four timeline options that emerged from the contact group in an annex “in order to capture progress made during IPCC-65”.
After countries were not able to agree on the draft decision, Skea suspended the meeting at 8:29pm on Friday.
He noted that it would no longer be inclusive for the meeting to continue, given that a number of delegations from developing countries had left.
Earlier in the plenary, Antigua and Barbuda’s delegation had emphasised that 6pm was its deadline and noted that representatives of other small-island developing states had departed. Nepal’s negotiating team had also stated it was leaving.
What were the main points of disagreement?
The ENB’s report details how the five-day meet was beset by disagreements between country delegations on the timeline issue.
As proceedings kicked off on Monday, a significant number of countries set out their position on whether publication of the reports should occur before, or after, the global stocktake.
Both camps cited inclusivity concerns. Those in favour of a stocktake-aligned timeline said that “inclusivity is a priority and should be addressed, but said delaying delivery of the report would further disadvantage the countries most vulnerable to climate change”, according to the ENB.
In discussions on Monday, the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu underscored that “every year of delay is a year in which communities on the frontlines bear losses that cannot be measured or claimed”, the ENB says. The delegation pointed to the International Court of Justice’s 2025 advisory opinion that countries have binding obligations to protect the climate.
The Netherlands delegation said it was “inconceivable” that two years before the conclusion of second global stocktake, the “body created to produce scientific advice accepts it will not deliver working group reports on mitigation and adaption, while the [IPCC co-chairs] say it is possible”, according to the ENB.
But other countries emphasised that the global stocktake could draw from other sources of science if the reports were not ready in time, the ENB notes.
China’s delegation opposed the IPCC holding more than three plenaries each year and said IPCC reports did not need to be linked to the global stocktake. Kenya said that publishing reports after the stocktake “did not mean science would not inform policy”.
Also among those to argue for a longer timeline were Iran and Iraq, with the latter underscoring the importance of participating in IPCC processes on an “equal footing” with other governments, the ENB says.
There were also disagreements over the specific mandate of the contact group set up by Skea on Monday to advance the timeline question. This debate endured well into the end of the week and days after the contact group had started its work.
Countries pushed back on each others’ characterisation of the different timeline options. Proponents for a longer timeline described plans where reports were published in 2028 as “rushed”, whereas those who wanted all reports published in time for the stocktake referred to the longer timeline as “delayed” or “significantly extended”, according to the ENB.
Countries also failed to reach consensus on the draft timeline decision presented to plenary on the last day of the meeting.
While some countries – including Antigua and Barbuda, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Mexico, the UK and Uruguay – detailed their preference for particular passages of the IPCC secretariat’s text, others rejected it outright.
For example, Algeria, India, Iraq and Saudi Arabia stated the draft text could not serve as a basis for work or decisions, according to ENB. India, meanwhile, argued that it could not engage in the decision as the contact group reached “no clear conclusion”.
In an analysis of developments at IPCC-65, the ENB states that discussions in Ethiopia had revealed “room to compromise” between countries.
It continues that “most countries” in attendance had stressed the importance of not deviating from a tradition where the IPCC follows the advice of working group co-chairs when it comes to the schedule for production of assessment reports.
In this case, that would mean agreeing to publish all three working group reports in 2028 “on a timeline that the co-chairs consider feasible and meets all the criteria for IPCC reports” (options one and two in table above).
In a statement shared with Carbon Brief after the meeting, Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege said that it was a “travesty that a handful of countries continue to delay the IPCC’s reports – the science we need back home to help us save lives and livelihoods”. She continued:
“We were here to work, but found every proposal dismissed – on inclusivity, on the relevance of the science for our national planning, on the necessity of evidence to inform the next global stocktake. Progress was blocked, down to the end – a shameful play for time when there is no time to waste.”
Hamid Abakar Souleymane, a negotiator from Chad, tells Carbon Brief the situation was “not helping” countries such as his, which are on the “frontlines” of climate change.
The African nation faces a host of climate impacts, including drought, heatwaves, severe rainfall, desertification and biodiversity loss, he says. As a result, it wants AR7 reports to be ready by the global stocktake so that “[climate] mitigation action can be accelerated”. He continues:
“It is only about two or three countries that are opposing every single element of the agenda – and this is really disappointing. We are in a very uncomfortable situation now because the global stocktake is coming. We don’t have a timeline [for reports] – and we haven’t yet adopted a budget.”
Abakar Souleyame also notes that Chad was at a disadvantage during negotiations because it was only able to send one representative to the meeting:
“A lot of meetings take place at the same time…The participation of a single delegate puts us in a very uncomfortable situation where we cannot contribute adequately to the ongoing process.”
Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
Inextricably linked with the AR7 timeline is the IPCC’s budget, which – among other things – allocates money for its author meetings and approval sessions, including support for experts from developing countries.
Throughout the meeting in Addis Ababa, governments and the IPCC leadership repeatedly emphasised that the IPCC is “facing a serious funding crisis”, the ENB says.
At the start of the meeting, the IPCC’s secretariat presented a proposed budget for 2026-29, which would cover the core work of AR7. This was submitted “against the backdrop of growing annual deficits and a progressively declining cash balance, raising significant concerns about the financial sustainability of the IPCC trust fund”, the document says.
The trust fund is made up of ongoing contributions from its parent organisations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in addition to voluntary contributions from its member governments and the UNFCCC.
The budget proposal notes that an “insufficient level of voluntary contributions” now “risks the successful completion of the AR7 cycle”.
Contributions in 2025 were 5.3m Swiss francs (£4.8m) lower than 2023, while costs have risen, the secretariat notes. As of the start of July, just 16 countries and organisations had contributed in 2026, totalling 2.8m Swiss francs (£2.6m).
These donors include the EU, UK, WMO, UNFCCC and UNEP, as well as Australia, Canada, Hungary, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago.
Despite being its largest donor historically, the US has not contributed financially to the IPCC since 2024 – before the second term of US president Donald Trump.
According to its proposed budget, the secretariat says it needs approximately 33m Swiss francs (£30m) to complete AR7 – equivalent to just over 8m Swiss francs (£7.2m) per year. At the level of contributions received in 2025, the IPCC trust fund would be “depleted by the end of 2028, preventing the IPCC from delivering the AR7 reports”, the document warns.
As a minimum, the IPCC needs 5.8m Swiss francs (£5.3m) per year in contributions to “enable the successful completion of the cycle”, the secretariat adds, although this would leave “no financial buffer for unforeseen circumstances”.
At the meeting, “many countries expressed concern” about the IPCC’s financial situation and “called for existing donors to increase their contributions”, says the ENB.
Iceland and Ireland said they “anticipated” making contributions soon, the ENB says, while others – including Azerbaijan, China, Finland and the EU – “assured” the IPCC of their continued support.
However, according to the ENB summary, the meeting struggled to agree on a number of points, including whether budget discussions should be paused until a timeline for AR7 had been agreed, and the work of the “Financial Task Team” (FiTT).
An FiTT is assembled for each assessment cycle for “reviewing income and expenditures, assisting in preparing the budget proposals and developing other recommendations related to finance for consideration by the panel”, according to the IPCC.
The IPCC established the FiTT for AR7 at its 60th session in Istanbul in January 2024. It is co-chaired by Kenya and Australia, with core team members from the Bahamas, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the US. Other government representatives can also participate.
Midway through the meeting, FiTT co-chair Patricia Nying’uro from Kenya reported to the plenary that they had been “unable to advance” on reviewing the budgets beyond 2026, with disagreements on whether “budget lines should remain or be deleted”, reports the ENB.
The attempts to remove whole budget lines drew expressions of “deep concern and disappointment” from other countries, the ENB says, with many noting that the work of the FiTT is “purely technical and has never been controversial”.
Belize, France, Germany, Panama and the Netherlands specified that “two delegations have threatened to have no budget if their conditions are not met”, the ENB says, with even budget lines for activities already agreed being “taken hostage”.
The ENB notes that both Saudi Arabia and India expressed concern that certain lines in the 2027 budget “favoured one option” for the AR7 timeline. Both countries opposed using the proposed budget as a basis for discussion in the FiTT, the ENB says.
The ENB quotes Prof Skea, who noted that most of the budget lines apply to all options for the timeline and was puzzled that members seemed to “disagree about things they don’t disagree about”.
A way forward was found for the FiTT to continue its discussions – despite Saudi Arabia’s accusing the secretariat of “blatant bias”, says the ENB. However, further disagreements arose over budget lines for approval meetings in 2027 to extend financial support for developing countries to bring two representatives rather than one.
Skea noted that despite “almost universal” support for increased participation of developing countries in IPCC sessions, the plenary discussions had continued for two and a half hours without agreement. He asked the timeline contact group to take up the issue.
Discussions on the rest of the budget continued in the FiTT, but “there were no further reports to plenary” before the meeting was suspended, the ENB says.
In the evening of the meeting’s final day, with no agreement on the timeline, Skea asked delegates to consider approving the proposed budgets for 2026 and 2027 to allow work on AR7 to continue. According to the ENB, Saudi Arabia, India and Russia objected.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo warned that the delay to agreeing the budgets was an “immediate danger to the viability” of the panel.
How have scientists reacted?
According to the ENB, Skea said in his closing address that if there were stronger words than “profound disappointment,” he would use them.
He noted that recent months had been “some of the most turbulent for the panel” and characterised IPCC-65 as “among the most difficult IPCC meetings”, it says.
It remains to be seen when discussions on the AR7 timeline and budget will restart.
A statement from Skea released after the meeting detailed plans to reconvene the plenary “at the earliest opportunity so the panel can effectively conclude its business”.
The IPCC declined Carbon Brief’s request for an interview with Skea, with a spokesperson noting it could not “discuss a plenary that had not yet finished its work”.
On Monday after the meeting, nearly 120 scientists currently drafting the AR7 reports had signed an open letter where they pledged to “keep working” on the reports. By Wednesday, more than 200 scientists had added their names.
The report authors said they remained committed to delivering the assessments “in a manner that is rigorous, timely and inclusive”. The letter also stresses the “world should not have to face” the second global stocktake without the IPCC’s latest reports.
In a statement, Dr Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, called for discussions to be resumed this year. He said:
“Urgent agreement is now needed to give planning security to the voluntary [report] authors, more than half of which are from developing countries and to safeguard a timeline that sees all WG reports published in 2028, in time to inform the second global stocktake.
“A resumed IPCC-65 session still this year, whichever way possible, is essential to at the very least agree to the IPCC’s 2027 budget to allow work to continue.”
Prof Fabrice Lambert, a contributing author of WG1 and Chilean government delegate, wrote on LinkedIn that there was now a “clear need for professional negotiators and experienced facilitators” from UN bodies to help organise and run panel sessions. He continued:
“Discussions have moved too far beyond the scientific questions that should be the IPCC’s mainstay. Bringing in that expertise could facilitate breakthroughs that have eluded us for so many sessions during AR7.”
The IPCC has also not yet confirmed the date and location of its next plenary session, IPCC-66.
What other issues remain unresolved?
After every IPCC meeting, the organisation writes a report summarising the discussion. However, the IPCC has failed to sign off on the reports for its past four sessions.
The first item on the agenda for last week’s IPCC meeting was the approval of these four draft reports. To open the discussion on Monday, Skea proposed developing guidelines for producing these meeting reports, the ENB says.
Belgium, France and the Netherlands suggested publishing full transcripts of the meetings in addition to the meeting reports. Panama supported the idea, “emphasising the need for transparency”, the ENB says. However, it adds that Saudi Arabia opposed the suggestion.
Saudi Arabia said it objected to the “highly selective manner” in which the draft meeting reports outlined certain topics in more detail than others, arguing that this “distorted [their] balance”.
Meanwhile, Belgium and Germany opposed the use of the passive voice in the meeting reports, arguing this gave an impression that all opinions are “equally supported”. They said that this resulted in a “skewed way of presenting discussions”, the ENB says.
IPCC vice-chair Prof Diana Ürge-Vorsatz led a huddle to continue the discussion. She reported back at the end of the week that the group had reached a “preliminary agreement” for the “principles for producing meeting reports”, the ENB notes:
“She said the discussion focused on how to record diverging views, as some panel members felt separating out two or three countries invited unwelcome attention or misinterpretation.
“Ürge-Vorsatz said the huddle agreed to group arguments, first identifying countries representing one perspective and elaborating on their argument, then identifying countries representing the other side of arguments. The secretariat will decide on the granularity of reporting.”
The panel requested that the IPCC secretariat prepare revised draft meeting notes in accordance with the new guidance. It decided to “submit the revised draft reports for consideration by the panel at its next working session”.
The IPCC also agreed to defer consideration of a review of its principles and procedures to a future meeting, after India, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia argued that there was not enough time to discuss the issue thoroughly, the ENB reports.
These documents are typically reviewed every five years. However, the last review was delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
The co-chairs of each AR7 working group updated governments on how the reports themselves were progressing.
All co-chairs highlighted their working group’s contribution to the special report on climate change and cities, scheduled to be published in 2027.
WG2 co-chairs Prof Winston Chow and Prof Bart van den Hurk explained to the conference floor that the second order draft of the special report was circulated for review earlier this year and received more than 25,000 comments. They added that the fourth lead author meeting was held in India in August and a final draft version is currently being prepared.
In his closing address on Friday, Skea said the progress reports presented by working-group chairs were evidence of the “ongoing achievements” of the IPCC, according to the ENB.
Noting that the IPCC’s scientific work was progressing, Skea reportedly stated that, despite challenges on the timeline issue, “the engine room of the IPCC is working – and it’s healthy”.
The sentiment was echoed by WG1 co-chair Dr Robert Vautard, who wrote on LinkedIn after the meeting that disagreements across country delegations on the AR7 timeline were “so disconnected from the actual collaborative spirit across authors in the report making”.
Nevertheless, the ENB’s meeting summary cautions that the ongoing inability of governments to reach agreement on “critical issues” was now “spilling over to authors”, with “serious potential consequences both for the IPCC and for the science the world depends on”.
It continues that, “while the work of scientists and governments is separate, the friction that has characterised AR7 plenary sessions is now directly affecting the ability of the scientists to carry out their work”.
How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
On Tuesday afternoon, Mxolisi Shongwe, programme officer at the IPCC secretariat, told the plenary that a workshop on IPCC “methods of assessment” was held in February 2026, which featured discussions on artificial intelligence (AI).
He added that the IPCC bureau – made up managerial roles including the IPCC chair, vice-chair and co-chairs of working groups – decided to establish an “informal group” on AI that would provide advice on the “responsible use of AI and emerging digital technologies in IPCC processes”, reports the ENB.
India and Russia “expressed concerns about lack of transparency in [the] use of AI in scientific research”, according to the ENB. Burundi and Iran highlighted the need for disclosure and human oversight in AI-produced material, while Congo asked how AI has so far been used by the IPCC.
After discussions about the terms of reference for the informal group on AI, the panel agreed that any guidance or recommendations that it produced will be “subject to subsequent confirmation by the panel”, reports the ENB.
Separately, vice-chair Ürge-Vorsatz reported on the progress of the IPCC’s gender action team, explaining that the group had finalised the report of the IPCC expert meeting on gender, diversity, equity and inclusivity.
The gender action team “aims to enhance gender equality in IPCC processes through monitoring, accounting for gender in decisions, including diversity in nominations and appointment”, according to the IPCC website.
Dozens of countries commented on the update. Luxembourg, supported by nine other countries, invited the panel to consider expanding the mandate of the gender action team to include “gender diversity, equity and inclusion”, reports the ENB.
However, Saudi Arabia opposed expanding the mandate of the gender action team, arguing it risked “diluting” the team’s work.
To close the discussion on Tuesday, Skea suggested the gender action team consider expanding its mandate and bring suggestions to IPCC-66.
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