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Call for mountain climate change experts

20.10.2016

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is currently requesting that Governments, Observer Organizations and IPCC Bureau members nominate experts, by Monday, 14 November 2016, for the scoping meeting of its 6th Assessment Report. The partners of the Sustainable Mountain Development for Global Change Programme (SMD4GC) discussed the call this week at the World Mountain Forum in Mbale, Uganda, and concluded that there is potential for a chapter on mountains to be included in the 6th IPCC Assessment Report.

Each IPCC Assessment Report is preceded by a scoping meeting to develop the report’s draft outline. IPCC focal points of Governments, Observer Organizations and IPCC Bureau members nominate experts to participate in the scoping meeting. These experts are selected by the relevant respective IPCC Working Group Bureau or Task Force Bureau. When selecting scoping meeting participants, they give consideration to the following criteria: scientific, technical and socio-economic expertise, including the range of views; geographical representation; a mixture of experts with and without previous experience in IPCC; gender balance; experts with a background from relevant stakeholders and user groups, including governments.

To increase the likelihood of a dedicated chapter on mountains in the next IPCC Assessment Report, it is important that a critical mass of mountain experts be nominated and participate in the upcoming scoping meeting. The IPCC produces the world’s foremost publication on climate change, therefore a dedicated chapter on mountains in such scientific documentation could be extremely beneficial to mountains, creating more knowledge about and adding greater visibility to the impacts of climate change on mountain peoples and ecosystems.

To apply, experts must contact their IPCC focal point to request a nomination form. Then, experts must return the completed form along with his or her CV (maximum four pages in English – PDF) to the IPCC focal point for submission. The deadline to submit expert nominations for participation in the 6th Assessment Report scoping meeting is Monday, 14 November 2016 (midnight CEST).

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Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe