The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body, set up by the UN, working to assess the science behind climate change. The IPCC itself does not engage in any scientific research. Instead, its mandate is to go through all recent literature on climate science published anywhere in the world and make its conclusions based on them. These conclusions come out in the form of assessment reports. So far, IPCC, which was formed in 1989, has produced four assessment reports. The fourth one came out in 2007 after which the IPCC was given the Nobel Peace Prize. The fifth assessment report is in the making and is due in 2013-14. The first assessment report, released in 1990, resulted in the creation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The Structure

The IPCC currently has 194 countries as members which are represented at the plenary and meet once in a year. The plenary elects a chairman whose term is made synchronous with the production of one assessment report, which is generally five-six years. The current chairman R K Pachauri is in his second term. He presided over the process of producing the fourth assessment report and is now in-charge of taking out the fifth as well. The plenary also elects a Bureau, presently comprising 31 member countries, which guides the scientific teams in the preparation of the reports. The Bureau has a similar tenure as the chairman. The IPCC secretariat, which has a small staff, plans and coordinates all

the activities.

The scientists and the process

About 2,500 scientists from all over the world participated in the fourth assessment report. About 60 of them were from India, in different capacities.

The scientists have to volunteer to work for the IPCC and their names are nominated by their respective governments to the IPCC secretariat. Care is taken to give adequate representation to every region of the world. These scientists, based on their area of expertise, are asked to work in one of the three working groups.