The IPCC Assessment Reports offer the scientific foundation for international climate negotiations and constitute an unmatched resource for climate change researchers. However, the assessment cycles take multiple years. As a contribution to cross- and interdisciplinary understanding across diverse climate change research communities, the authors streamlined an annual process to identify and synthesize essential research advances. The authors collected input from experts on different fields using an online questionnaire.

The following are the prioritized set of 10 key research insights with high policy relevance: (1) looming overshoot of the 1.5°C warming limit, (2) urgency of phasing-out fossil fuels, (3) challenges for scaling carbon dioxide removal, (4) uncertainties regarding the future of natural carbon sinks, (5) need for join governance of biodiversity loss and climate change, (6) advances in the science of compound events, (7) mountain glacier loss, (8) human immobility in the face of climate risks, (9) adaptation justice, and (10) just transitions in food systems.

SEI’s Ploy Achakulwisut is a co-author of Insight #2. For each insight, the authors present a succinct account, reflect on policy implications, and offer an integrated set of policy relevant messages. This science synthesis and science communication effort is also the basis for a report targeted to policymakers as a contribution to elevate climate science every year, in time for the UNFCCC COP.

Visit: 10insightsclimate.science