News outlets are providing many ways to summarize and contextualize the latest climate report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC.  The Panel has finalized the first part of the Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report. It was finalized on August 6, 2021.

Bill McPherson, UUMFE Board member, has provided some tips for reading the documents.  Bill worked as the U.S. diplomatic representative to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in Geneva in the 1990’s, and as a writer/editor for Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) from 2004 to 2010. In the links below, you will find the IPCC summary for policymakers and the ENB report on the IPCC.

The IPCC report is somewhat difficult to read, so Bill recommends that you read the ENB first. The discussion at the beginning and the analysis at the end are particularly good and easy reads. The middle part has detailed information on different sections and positions of governments, so I recommend you skim through that part.

When reading the IPCC the brief statements highlighted in blue are the important points and the graphs are worth perusal.

Earth Negotiations Bulletin:   Learn More 

IPCC summary: Learn More