Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

The IPCC #SR15 Report and Its Implications for Future Climate Action

T. Jayaraman

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming at 1.5 deg C (#SR15)
is widely acknowledged to be a landmark event in the 30-year history of the
organisation. We will provide a brief introduction on how the report came
to be prepared, outlining some key features of the IPCC's method of
preparing its reports in general. We describe some of the key findings of
the report and then turn to a critical commentary on its policy
conclusions. We will consider the implications for future climate action,
both in terms of climate mitigation and climate adaptation, as well as the
ongoing negotiations on the implementation of the Paris Agreement. We point
out why, in our view, the report raises some serious and troubling
questions regarding the IPCC's handling of the science-policy nexus and how
these questions, which have always bedevilled the IPCC process, have come
to a head in this case. We also comment, in particular, on how the report
writing and approval process of this report has reflected the political
fault lines, especially with reference to the North-South divide and
intra-South divisions, that characterise the negotiations currently.