Setting the course for adjustments: the IPCC special report on 1.5°C of global warming

Cyclones, rising sea levels, droughts: the fact that climate change is threatening poorer countries in particular was officially recognised in the Paris Climate Treaty in 2015. A special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clarifies what politics and society can now do to stop global warming at 1.5°C and what the consequences of this global warming would be. The only German coordinating lead author of the report is Prof. Dr Daniela Jacob, Director of the Climate Service Center Germany, GERICS, a Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht institution.

89 international authors contributed to the new IPCC Special Report. Prof. Dr. Daniela Jacob is one of three climate researchers from a German institution involved in the SR1.5 and leads a chapter of the special report on the effects of 1.5 ° C warming on natural and human systems. As the only German coordinating lead author (CLA), she has been responsible for 60 pages of the 200-page report. Together with two other CLAs, she leads the team of 18 authors for her chapter.

The Special Report is politically highly relevant: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change asked the IPCC to prepare the special report which is the first to be produced at the request of the parties to the Paris Climate Treaty. The contracting parties hope that this will provide information about the risks and opportunities of a 1.5°C and a 2°C warmer world.

Thorough process

The only German coordinating lead author of the report is Prof. Dr Daniela Jacob, Director of the Climate Service Center Germany, GERICS, a Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht institution. [Photo: HZG/Christian Schmid]

The lead authors systematically review and evaluate all relevant scientific findings which exist on the impact of global warming of 1.5°C on humans and nature. Daniela Jacob: “We have evaluated around 1,000 scientific articles. Our work was then reviewed in several stages, first by experts and then by governments. There were more than 10,000 comments on the 60 pages.”

The comments that have arisen during the multi-stage review process must all be answered and documented. This takes a vast amount of time, that all the authors provide on a voluntary basis. Daniela Jacob: “Since I had already been the lead author of a world climate report in 2014, I knew the scope of the work and knew what I was signing up for. And, of course, interdisciplinary collaboration with authors from all over the world is extremely valuable. In addition, we are all inspired by the prospect of being able to make a difference with this report.”

The Special Report is to be adopted by the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in October 2018. It will thus be available for the ‘Facilitative Dialogue’, now called ‘Talanoa Dialogue’, at the COP24 in Katowice in December 2018.

Additional information:

About Daniela Jacob:

Prof. Dr Daniela Jacob (57) is director of the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), an independent scientific organisational unit of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, and visiting professor at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Faculty of Sustainability. In June 2010, Daniela Jacob was appointed one of the leading authors of the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report (Working Group 2). She is currently one of the coordinating lead authors of the IPCC special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. She coordinated, inter alia, the international European research project (EU-FP7) IMPACT2C, that investigated the effects of 2°C of global warming on different sectors. She is a member of several committees and an ex-officio member of Earth League, an international alliance of prominent scientists from first-class research institutions. Her main areas of research and interest are regional climate modelling and the hydrological cycle. In addition, Daniela Jacob is editor-in-chief of the journal ‘Climate Services’, a new scientific journal she founded together with the publisher Elsevier Verlag.

The title of the report

„Global warming of 1.5 °C – The IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty”.

Contact:

Heidrun Hillen
Press office
Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) / Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht
Phone: +49 (0)4152 / 87 - 1648