Why India Is Opposing a Faster Timeline for the IPCC’s AR7 Reports

Could you elaborate on India’s position on the timeline question and the reasoning behind it?

T. Jayaraman (TJ): India has argued that the IPCC reports, to be fit-for-purpose and high quality, should be rigorous, accurate, and robust. Rigour refers to the use of proper, sound methodologies of assessment, and accuracy calls for the correct application of these methods. Robustness refers to the stability of the results and typically requires a body of literature that examines more than one side of an issue, and sufficient time for the scientific community involved to judge the validity of claimed results. To produce reports that satisfy these criteria requires an appropriate process and sufficient time.

The IPCC assessment involves two key reviews by volunteer experts and two key reviews by governments with one overlapping review among these. All these reviews require time and resources for adequate participation from the Global South, especially by governments. With the growing volume of comments, authors also require time to analyse and absorb them in the next iteration of the draft reports. At the end of the review process, time is also required to prepare for the approval sessions where the Summary for Policymakers is approved line by line by governments.

Another concern for India is the need for sufficient inclusivity of views, perspectives, approaches and methods from the Global South in the literature assessed in the IPCC reports and in the methodologies of assessment used, especially in view of the susceptibility to bias and prejudice in most issues in climate science and policy. We have been especially concerned, like several other developing countries, with the lack of sufficient engagement with the theme of global and international equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the science-policy nexus in the work of the IPCC. Addressing this concern too requires adequate time for the process of producing IPCC reports, especially ensuring that adequate peer-reviewed literature is available from the Global South.

Some voices, from the beginning of AR7 in 2024, have sought to hugely narrow the scope and objectives of the IPCC reports to primarily one of informing one particular process in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, namely the GST. As the second GST is set to conclude in November 2028, these voices have insisted that the IPCC should be focussed on producing all reports before this date.

India and several other developing countries have pointed out that such a rush would compromise both the quality of the reports and the ability of Global South authors to produce literature in sufficient numbers through the global peer-review process to be fairly represented, where even a matter of months will make a significant difference.

Tejal Kanitkar (TK): Two major iterations of the proposed timeline have been presented by the IPCC leadership, referred to as the Bureau of the IPCC. All the variations have focussed solely on ensuring that the reports are ready before October 2028.

Thus far, no proposal for the timeline of work for the IPCC reports has been presented that, in India’s view, meets i) the criteria of sufficient time for IPCC report authors’ to analyse the comments and produce a fresh iteration, ii) the criteria of non-overlap or minimal overlap of the government review period with other United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes and related engagements (typically a month in June and November or December every year), iii) non-overlap of the review periods of different Working Group Reports, for experts as well as for governments. These criteria are essential, and sanctioned by the IPCC Rules of Procedure, so India is not asking for anything unusual.

Already, much of the time needed for authors to deliver research findings in time for inclusion in the IPCC process has been whittled away by the speeding up of the process in the last two years. Any further speeding would further damage both the quality of the reports and their inclusivity.

According to India, by when should AR7 be complete?

TJ: Several developing countries, including India, have argued that a reasonable time schedule, offering i) adequate time for relevant peer-reviewed literature to be available from the Global South for the AR7 report deadlines, ii) adequate time for governments to review the report drafts without unreasonable burdens, iii) allowing reasonable time for authors to do their work and respond to expert and government reviews adequately, ensuring the rigour, accuracy, and robustness of the findings, will need the outputs of the AR7 to be finally released over the period from May/June 2028 to late 2029.

On a rational and reasonable time scale, Working Group II and III may be produced over the second and early third quarters of 2029, while the Synthesis Report will conclude by the fourth quarter of 2029, as has already been agreed. The other products, as already mentioned, will appear in the third quarter of 2028. This is our proposal, but obviously a final decision has to be arrived at by consensus at an IPCC plenary session.

TK: The real problem is, if you look at the record of the proceedings of IPCC sessions since 2024, the developing countries who are proposing alternate timelines have not been allowed to formally present their views in detail, put them on the record and discuss the issue with all alternatives present before all. This erodes the fundamental element of confidence in the process. We look forward to this being taken up in the next session of the IPCC, so that we can have a rational, evidence-based discussion as a multilateral scientific organisation instead of asking us to align our views on the basis of the political rhetoric of making available so-called “best available science”.

What positions have other countries taken on these two issues, and how many of them are aligned with India’s position?

TK: It is a matter of record that a number of developed countries (with the exception of the Russian Federation), together with a number of other countries, wish to see all IPCC Reports (with the exception of the Synthesis Report that brings together a synthesis of all other reports) ready before the second GST concludes in 2028.

India, and a number of other developing countries that include China, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia, are in favour of a set of relevant criteria that would ensure quality and inclusivity, in terms of the views of the Global South, in the IPCC reports. They have also pointed to the serious issues raised by attempts to accelerate the timeline for producing the reports and the downgrading of the role and significance of the IPCC by linking it to a single point in the UNFCCC process.

TJ: As IPCC decisions are arrived at by consensus, we do not see this as a numbers game. Developing countries, including India, are raising a number of pertinent questions on how the IPCC should function, especially in its report preparation, but are not receiving a coherent response. That is the crux of the problem.

What would you say to the argument that the GST is better when informed by AR7 because stocktaking processes are for policy and policy must be based on the latest science? AR6 will be dated by six years by the time of the next GST cycle. If we are spending six years writing a report, would we prefer it be done slightly in advance to make it relevant to a stocktake process or delay it slightly so that it is not at all relevant? Both are active decisions i.e. to advance or to push.

TJ: The GST needs to be based on the “best available science” and not on the “latest available science”. This is what we have all agreed to in the Conference of Parties (COP) decisions on the GST and the Paris Agreement. Developing countries have been burnt badly before in accepting the “latest available science”. At COP26 in 2021, global mitigation targets from the IPCC Special Report on “Global Warming of 1.5 degrees” were parachuted into the main decision, only for them to find later, that these targets were inequitably based on the Global South bearing a hugely disproportionate burden of emissions reduction, despite the overwhelming responsibility of the Global North for the same.

Nor were the scientific caveats and assumptions associated with these targets brought into the COP26 decision. They are not likely to repeat that error again, and scientific information needs to be properly discussed for its policy implications in a transparent manner. In the climate and sustainability arena, we need a “science for a just and equitable world”.

Nor is it a black-and-white situation, that no information from the IPCC will be available for the GST. There will be one Special Report (on climate change and cities), two methodology reports on greenhouse gas inventories (relating to carbon capture and storage and short-lived greenhouse gases), and most likely the report of the Working Group I of the IPCC on the science of climate change, available in time to be included as inputs to GST2.

TK: The IPCC reports are not the sole source of the scientific information required for the GST. There are the country-wise Biennial Transparency Reports filed by every country on their implementation of the Paris Agreement, reports of all the subsidiary bodies and other constituted bodies of the UNFCCC, reports from an array of multilateral scientific institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), WHO, etc., other reports from countries, international think tanks and research institutions, and so on. For the first GST we have more than 1,800 documents running to over 2,00,000 pages submitted in the repository. All such information will count as inputs to the second GST and the volume is expected to be higher for GST2.

Indeed the technical phase of the GST, that considers the relevant scientific information, should end at the latest by mid-2028, by which time only the reports mentioned above will be ready, and that too with considerable effort. So it is not true that it is a black-and-white, advance or delay situation. Not at all.

TJ: Over the longer term, the GST cycle and the IPCC Report cycles are highly unlikely to match. IPCC reports go through a cycle of 6 to 7 years in practice, while the GST cycle is mandated to be a 5-year one. Given the starting point of the Paris Agreement in 2020, it is not practically feasible to match the two cycles. Matching the cycles by force, truncating the work of the IPCC, will compromise the quality and integrity of the science.

India, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia have argued that the timeline should not result in back-to-back government reviews and overlap with related UNFCCC meetings, as per reporting by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Could you elaborate on this? If AR7 were scheduled to be finalised in 2028, what would 2027 and 2028 entail in terms of workload?

TK: All IPCC report drafts undergo two reviews by governments, for about eight weeks each (as per earlier reports). Increasingly they require intense work, mobilising the scientific community of the entire country to review the mass of information and findings and all-of-government effort for an effective review. Given the structural domination of the Global North in knowledge production, such reviews are a particularly onerous task for developing country governments. UNFCCC negotiations require a similar effort.

So running these two processes in parallel is not acceptable. Back-to-back reviews mean that for several months, the climate departments and related government institutions across the world will be completely overtaken by such review work, leaving no time for other work when the knowledge demands of climate action at the domestic level already impose a considerable burden. So this back-to-back review also needs to be avoided. Developed countries do not have this burden, because their perspectives are already incorporated through their dominant role in the global knowledge industry and the fact that it is their knowledge institutions that dominate the global literature.

Some people interpret the stance taken by India, China, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya on this issue as reluctance to take mitigation action on the assumption that consecutive IPCC reports have pointed to the need for more drastic and immediate climate action. Your response?

TK: There is no substance to this interpretation. Developing countries such as those you have named, including India, and several others are active participants in the IPCC process and contribute actively to the preparation, review, and approval of the reports according to their scientific capacities. The extent and rapidity of climate action required and the relative responsibility and capacity of countries for climate action are openly debated in the climate mitigation and policy literature.

A number of reports from various UN organisations (such as the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, or FAO), international agencies such as the International Energy Agency, independent think tanks and a steady and growing stream of papers in the academic literature vigorously discuss these issues in detail and are substantially covered by both media in general as well as media specialising in climate affairs. This literature is available and is used and cited in the global discourse on climate action. One report alone, even if from the IPCC, does not play a make or break role in determining the expectations from developing countries for climate action.

TJ: Developing countries are well aware of this literature as well, and factor this knowledge into their policy making, while also taking account of the realities of their social and economic situation. So the allegation that some developing countries are particularly concerned by this one report from the IPCC and are therefore seeking to withhold it for the second global stocktake does not hold water.