Kathmandu, April 10

The Ministry of Population and Environment and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development will be hosting a regional outreach event in Kathmandu from April 11 to 13, where the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change will be presenting its findings with a focus on South Asia.

The UN body will also present its work programme for the Sixth Assessment Report cycle at the event.

According to an ICIMOD press release, IPCC bureau members and authors will participate in workshops as part of the three-day outreach event, which will be attended by policymakers, practitioners, scientists, civil society members, and business and media representatives from South Asia.

“The mountain regions face particular vulnerabilities to climate change, but various adaptation and mitigation options exist to make society more resilient and create opportunities for a sustainable future,” said Joy Pereira, vice-chair of Working Group II of the IPCC, adding, “This timely conference will provide valuable guidance to policymakers and practitioners for addressing the challenges of climate change.”

Scientists will present the latest IPCC report, the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) completed in 2014, which was a crucial input to the Paris Climate Change Agreement reached in December 2015. AR5 found the world has the means to limit global warming and build a more prosperous and sustainable future, but pathways to limit warming to 2 degree Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels will require substantial emission reductions over the next few decades.

“We would like to see the research community in Nepal and other developing countries tackle local questions and provide us with scientific literature that can feed into the new AR6 and future assessments.” Joy added, “We also hope that more scientists from the region will be nominated as IPCC authors across the range of topics that we assess.”