The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting was due to end on Friday after a week. But long texts and discussion about, among other things, carbon capture meant that it dragged on. The countries' increasingly tired delegates continued without interruption until Sunday morning when the report was approved.
-It was a mixture of "Oh how tired I am", and "How nice that we got to the finish line", says Markku Rummukainen, climate researcher at SMHI and Swedish representative at the meeting in Switzerland.
In 36 pages, the six reports published in 2018-2022 are summarized by the IPCC. The conclusion is that climate change is already here, and that both humans and nature are threatened (see fact box below). But how big the effects will be depends very much on how quickly emissions can be reduced.
"It is a very heavy basis at a very critical stage of climate work. This is the basis for how we talk about the climate," says Markku Rummukainen.