IPCC leadership grid

	B	C	D	E	F	G
1		Mouse over the names to see additional information and links.
2
3		Jean-Pascal van Ypersele	Thomas Stocker	Chris Field	Hoesung Lee	Nebojsa Nakicenovic
4	Background & scientific interests:	"I am a physicist...I specialised myself in the study of sea ice and the ocean circulation around Antarctica...I spent a lot of time giving public lectures, giving advice to the government in the arena of climate change and sustainable development."	"I think that science is taking huge strides in improving the ability of decadal prediction...Another issue concerns the whole topic of tipping points...A very large area, I think, that needs extremely good coverage in the next assessment report is ocean acidification."	"My expertise covers all the way from the physics end of WG1 to the economics end of WG3, but with a real focus on impacts, adaptation and vulnerable, which is, you know, really where climate makes a differences."	"I'm an economist with a speciality in climate change... I think if you ask me to choose the most important work in climate change issues, then I'll choose carbon price. That's because it is the driver to put us into the right track."	"My scientific interests are largely in the area of how do we achieve a developed world while not interfering with what's nowadays called planetary boundaries, that is essentially not going beyond the limits of our relatively small planet. "
5	Candidates' views on...
6	Readability of the SPMs	"We have to see how the help of professional writers can be incorporated. I think it probably needs to be done as upstream as possible...But it is important to leave the last word to scientists and to governments."	"As co-chair of working group one, I would actually slightly disagree [that they are hard to read] as we have taken great care in our working group to come up with very clear and simple messages. We call those the headline statements."	"We face a very important but difficult challenge to make the findings crystal clear to people with a wide range of technical backgrounds, at the same time that they're scientifically accurate...It's like trying to write poetry, but with hundreds of people shouting suggestions in different languages."	"My hypothesis is, it's not the way the SPM was presented, but the content of the SPM presented to the decision makers ...if this is the case then a science writer or a graphic designers, their contributions won't work."	"I think uniqueness of the IPCC, of science working together with governments, should not be eroded. On the contrary, it needs to be strengthened while at the same time making products that are easier to understand and easier to read."
7	On AR6 scope & function	"I'm in favour of having products that are matching better the cycle of the negotiations process but the quality level absolutely needs to be maintained, that's really essential."	"Regional information from the global models to the regional-model efforts...I think that is, probably the single most important progress that should and hopefully could be made in AR6."	"They've decided to keep the basic structure of the three working groups, with an increased focus on the synthesis report and with a series of special reports."	"The consensus was that we would follow more or less a similar structure as we have adopted for the last reports...we don't generally expect much change from the previous cycle."	"A major challenge is to try to link climate change together with vulnerabilities and impacts, together with loss and damage notions, and together with economic and social aspects of mitigation and adaptation."
8	Media & communication	"I think improving communication and improving relations with media is really important. The IPCC needs to be more transparent, explain better what it's doing, and be even more responsive."	"Improvements are always possible...I've learned a lesson in the past report and that is that it's absolutely crucial to start the process of shaping the results into communicable units very early on in the process."	"I think the core responsibility is making the findings clear. Clear isn't exactly the same as media friendly, but I do think we haven't fulfilled our responsibilities unless our intended audience understands what it is we're trying to say."	"I think media friendly IPCC reports is a very, very important role that the IPCC leadership must always keep in mind."	"I have no doubt that the outreach function needs to be further strengthened...I think the world has changed and I think the role of the IPCC could be significantly larger in the future and it should not be kept as a scientific secret."
9	Past mistakes by IPCC	"We were quite naive at the time on how to deal with the media...If something similar happened today, the IPCC would probably be much more reactive and the errors would be corrected much faster."	"The process has changed in quite an evident manner. We now have an error protocol...Errors can happen and do happen. But, what we want to do is to have a clear communication if an error has happened, and what we do about it.	"The IPCC has a really ambition process for making sure that errors don't creep in...I feel very comfortable that the process we have in place now allows us to fix errors, but I also feel like in the AR5 we were a lot more attentive to quality control than we were in the AR4."	"Ever since the International IAC recommendations were adopted by the IPCC, the IPCC has made tremendous progress in making its process more open and transparent...I think we have done a good repair job from those incidents, unfortunate incidents."	"I think one can do a little bit more on the transparency, but it's going on the right direction. Dealing with errors is clearly important...more attention needs to be given to the error correction, it's essential."
10	Carbon Budgets	"It confronts policymakers with hard numbers, which are not always well understood...the sense of urgency has probably been increased by using those carbon budgets."	"I think the policymakers - after a first slight hesitation - I think they have embraced this concept now...I think it is an extremely important instrument that basically allows you to inform the policymakers where we stand, without prescription."	"[AR5] brought the issue of cumulative carbon budgets into focus...it introduces the important point that no matter what the temperature target is, eventually CO2 emissions need to go to zero."	"Ideally, it should be very effective, but in reality I do not see carbon budgets having much impact on action...we need something to connect carbon budgets to our decisions on daily life."	"I think this is a very powerful notion...It's an endowment for the whole of humanity, it's an endowment to achieve what is ahead of us, to achieve development, to meet other social and human needs."
11	A role in assessing INDC's	"I'd like to disagree strongly with that suggestion, because I think it's really out of the mandate of the IPCC...We can help those who would make the assessment...But the assessment itself certainly needs to be done by others than the IPCC."	"There are other entities that are capable to basically look at these numbers as they are reported... I do see a role of IPCC in how an INDC, perhaps, is being developed in an individual country...But on an annual basis, year to year, I don't think that's the task of IPCC."	"There have been many, many suggestions about things that the IPCC can do in the future...Exactly where the boundary between IPCC and other work should be needs to be considered really carefully."	"There are some who would like to have the IPCC involved in that process of evaluating the INDCs. However, I think that is not, should not be, the major function of the IPCC."	"I think it's a very good suggestion...my take would be that the potential role for the IPCC is to look at the aggregate of all the INDCs and then look in particular beyond the current timeframe...What does it mean for 2050?"
12	Adaptation vs mitigation	"[The IPCC] leaves the options open...An option in the area of adaptation or mitigation that would be appropriate in one country, in a particular context, may be totally inappropriate in another country, in a different context."	"I think the reports are clear enough, we mention always adaptation and mitigation...there is a very intimate link between adaptation and mitigation."	"I think it's increasingly clear that adaptation and mitigation need to be handled together ... [Investments] can actually be complementary to each other, especially if they're part of a broader strategy of sustainable societal development."	"It is very obvious that those two are complementary...I don't think the question is about striking the right balance between these two elements, but rather to have as much of each element as possible."	"It's definitely not either-or, the two things go together...we are definitely beyond the phase where adaptation can be considered to be a marginal issue, it isn't. It is as important as mitigation."
13	The feasibility of 1.5/2C	"The answer to your question could involve some value judgement, but if it is something realistic or not depends on many things, including value judgement in terms of priorities, etc. So I couldn't - certainly on behalf of the IPCC - give a straight answer to that question."	"the 1.5 degree target appears to us as an extremely ambitious target...It will only be a few years [before] the 2C target will become as ambitious as what we are now discussing for 1.5C.	"I think that the message is already clear, that if the world does want to strive to limit warming to 1.5C or less, we don't have very much of the carbon budget left. One of the things that we have a real responsibility to do is clarify what the impacts are at more or less ambitious levels of mitigation."	"That depends on how the world will react to the IPCC messages of the 1,000 gigatonne carbon budget...the aggregation of the pledges from the individual countries is very over the 2C stabilisation goal. Therefore, countries need to do some more to achieve that."	"There is no doubt that the lower we go, the more difficult it is going to be...Most important is the social change...Without that, I think scenarios like 2C and below will be out of reach."
14	Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)	"The IPCC report discusses the advantages and the disadvantages of the different options, and mentions that there are some significant challenges associated to BECCS. For example, in terms of potential conflicts between food production and biofuels production or biomass production for BECCS, and that these needs to be addressed. But again, that's a matter of political choice."	"Even the two degree target...requires in the second half of the 21st century...negative, net-negative emissions. This is the finding of the science as it is now."	"We may in 100 years have technology for removing CO2 from the air that does it in an inexpensive, efficient, non-space-requiring way. And I think there's a decent chance that future generations are going to rue that they needed to invest in that."	"The technology to achieve that goal is not yet available. Therefore, there is a risk in expecting such a scenario to materialise. But at the same time...we just simply do not know what sort of technology will be available for the future."	"My view on that is that we do have all of the component technologies. That means that, technically, one can think how that could be done...The problem…[is] scaling up by more than a factor of a thousand.
15	Social media	"Yes, I started to use Twitter two or three years ago, or three or four years ago...I use it to communicate about the products of IPCC, about progress in climate science...Sometimes I interact with people with questions about the IPCC. Sometimes I live tweet some events."	"I'm not using it personally…[It] was an extremely interesting and rewarding process, to try and distill out of complex scientific findings a simple statement or a group of statements. And that's not something that you can capture in 160 characters."	"I do use Twitter and in the run up to the AR5 release was my most active period of tweeting. And I used it primarily to highlight the scientific papers that were being written by AR5 authors, mainly just to generate a conversation around the report."	"I do not use those social media, just because I don't have much time...There are people who are very much fond of using that medium...But, for myself, I do see not much of a net gain...I do have an account, but I rarely visit it."	"There is no doubt that is very important...I think that the IPCC has to keep up with the times, the world is changing. There are other ways of communicating and this should not be ignored. On the contrary, I think more effort has to be put in that direction."
16	Better linkages between working groups	"[The Synthesis Report] integrates information in a policy-relevant way without being prescriptive from the three working groups, matching...the description of the problem to the elements of solutions, so that's a very good way to communicate."	"As science progresses, the working groups come closer and closer together...I am very confident that for the sixth assessment cycle...there will be a natural move towards a more integrated assessment."	"I think there are ways for the working groups to really have the independence that makes them vibrant, while still working in a way that's coordinated and focused on a single, unified set of goals."	"I think each working group has different mandates and also consists of different expertise with different backgrounds. And, therefore, it is better that each working group has independent authority in pursuing its assessment duties."	"For me, that's the highest priority...Each of the working groups is an important pillar, so I would not argue for softening those pillars but I would argue for building a new superstucture on top of them."
17	Pachauri	"The former chair of the IPCC led the IPCC in a strong way, and also succeeded in instilling a certain team spirit in the plenaries and in the organisation as a whole."	"Rajendra Pachauri has had a management and leadership style of the IPCC that also led a large leeway to the co-chairs, and I'm very grateful for that...Another achievement is certainly the communication around the world that was very effectively done."	"The IPCC has continued to provide high quality science products...it's an amazing accomplishment, and I think that all the leaders all the way through the history...deserve a tremendous amount of credit."	"I think he has been a very enthusiastic supporter of the IPCC and many of us have benefitted greatly from his contribution...He made the IPCC leadership a cooperative entity...and his spirit of cooperation and collaboration is a very important principle."	"I think he deserves quite a lot of praise...One of the things Dr Pachauri did well is to find a balance between giving enough freedom for the co-chairs and for the working groups and providing overall leadership."
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