The Secretary-General of the World Weather Organization (WMO) fears the consequences of "apocalyptic fears" for young people's mental health.

"We have to be careful how we report on science, tipping points, and whether we're talking about biosphere collapse or humanity disappearing," said Petteri Taalas on Monday, kicking off final deliberations on the next IPCC report ( IPCC), which will be published on February 28th.

The report should also deal with the effects of the climate crisis on the psyche.

"We have to be careful not to create too much fear among young people," Taalas said.

The deliberations on the report are taking place online, hosted by the Federal Government.

Taalas himself is not involved in the report.

However, the WMO founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 together with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

The IPCC Secretariat is located at the WMO in Geneva.

IPCC boss Hoesung Lee emphasized the importance of the new assessment report on the consequences of global warming at the start of the talks on Monday.

The report is urgently awaited "because there has never been more at stake" than now, Lee said in a video conference on Monday.

Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) praised the rigorous scientific foundation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"The IPCC reports are the gold standard," she said.

Negotiations behind closed doors

Over the next two weeks, governments will deliberate behind closed doors on a thirty-page summary of the new report for policymakers.

Because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a UN body, this paper must be adopted by consensus.

Details of the report will be kept under wraps until then.

The co-chair of the IPCC working group, marine biologist Hans-Otto Pörtner from the Alfred Wegener Institute, expected some controversial debates, as he said in advance, about the risks of using fossil fuels or measures to adapt to the consequences of climate change in drought regions.

Countries that are on the same river or glacier often have different interests.

The summary for policy makers is based on a scientific report of more than 1000 pages.

The core team consists of 270 authors from 67 countries, including Germany.

They have compiled the results of more than 34,000 studies.

Third part will follow in April

It is the second of three parts of the new status report that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published about every seven years since 1988.

The first part on the scientific basis of climate change was published in August 2021. The third part, which will be published in early April, deals with political, economic and technological options for mitigating climate change.

The first part said that the global average temperature could reach or exceed the critical value of 1.5 degrees in the next 20 years.

Significantly higher warming would have catastrophic consequences.

According to the international climate agreement, exceeding the threshold should be prevented as far as possible by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The environmental organization WWF expects a sobering and unsparing conclusion from the new report, as climate protection expert Viviane Raddatz said in Berlin: “In many parts of the world, people and ecosystems already have their backs to the wall.

And even on our own doorstep, summer droughts, flash floods, forest fires, heat waves and flood disasters have made the climate crisis more tangible than ever before.” Climate protection must have top priority from now on.

Germany must use the G7 presidency to get the international community on course: "Means: Get out of coal, oil and gas - and as quickly as possible!"