Findings from the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Cycle (AR6) Working Group 1 Report
20 August 2021
16:30 – 18:00 IST / 13:00 – 14:30 CEST
Countries across the Global South have long been impacted by human-induced climate change, despite contributing very little to global carbon emissions. Now, events trigged by climate crisis are prevalent across the Global North, from flooding to wildfires. Globally, cities like Chennai and Cape Town have experienced days with no water supply due to long droughts, while farmers across the world are trying to adjust their farming practices amid uncertain rainfall patterns. Coastal cities are increasingly seeing disasters from cyclones and storm surges. Floods, droughts and other extreme events like heat waves and cyclones are the main ways in which people across the world are feeling the impacts of climate change. Many of these impacts are water related. Is climate change intensifying the global water cycle? Is climate change making extreme events more likely and more intense?
These are some of the questions that authors from Working Group I of the IPCC will discuss in a webinar on 20th August, 2021 organised by IWMI. The IPCC is releasing its Working Group I report in early August 2021. Two lead authors of IPCC will speak at the IWMI-organised webinar, and present their findings from the latest round of IPCC Assessment. These are Friederike Otto, Associate Director of the Environmental Change Unit, University of Oxford, and Dr Krishnan Raghavan, who specializes in climate modelling. They will be joined by panellists including Neeta Pokrel, Dr Mark Smith, Dr Debra Roberts, Prof. Saleemul Huq, and Cate Lamb, who will discuss the implications of the latest climate change findings for regions like Asia and Africa where CGIAR works. The event will be facilitated by Dr Aditi Mukherji.
The IPCC is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change and publishes reports at intervals of seven years. The Sixth Assessment Cycle consists of three IPCC Working Groups Reports, three Special Reports and a Synthesis Report. The contributions from the three Working Groups will be released between 2021 and 2022, starting with the release of WGI Report in early August, 2021.
Speakers
Freddi Otto (Fredi), is Associate Director of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, and an Associate Professor in the Global Climate Science Programme.
Her main research interest is on extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves and storms, and understanding whether and to what extent these are made more likely or intense due to climate change. She leads several projects understanding the impacts of man-made climate change on natural and social systems with a particular focus on Africa and India.
Fredi is the co-lead of World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international effort to analyse and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, hosted at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. Through rapid attribution studies, which provide timely scientific evidence showing the extent to which climate change influenced a given event, WWA has helped to change the global conversation around climate change, influencing adaptation strategies and paving the way for new sustainability litigation.
Dr. Krishnan Raghavan heads the Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR) at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune. He specializes in climate modeling and analysis to address key scientific issues pertaining to “Global Climate Change and Variability, Climate Dynamics (Global and Regional), Dynamics and Variability of the Indian and Asian Monsoon, Global and Monsoon Hydrological Cycle”. He is proactively involved in developing in-house capability in Earth System Modeling to address the science of climate change. Krishnan carried out Ph.D. research at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, in Atmospheric Sciences. He was awarded Ph.D. degree from the University of Pune in 1994.
Yasmin Siddiqi is a chartered civil engineer (UK) and has a post graduate degree in irrigation engineering (UK). She has over 25 years of experience in natural resources management, including integrated water resources management, irrigation, knowledge solutions and leading teams at Asian Development Bank (ADB). She is currently the operational director for agriculture and natural resources in the Central and West Asia Department of ADB.
Dr. Debra Roberts is head of the Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit in eThekwini Municipality (Durban, South Africa). She was a lead author of Chapter 8 (Urban Areas) and a contributing author to Chapter 12 (Africa) of Working Group II’s contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She was elected as Co-Chair of Working Group II for the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle in 2015. Dr. Roberts is an Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in the School of Life Sciences and has been an advisor to the Global Commission on Adaptation, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the United Nations Secretary General’s 2019 Climate Summit. In 2019 she was included in a list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy.
Cate Lamb has over 20 years of experience in all aspects of sustainable development, corporate engagement, and team leadership. As Global Director of CDP’s Water Security Initiative, she is responsible for ensuring that the program remains the gold standard for disclosure of corporate and city water-related information globally and moves rapidly to deliver significant changes in corporate and city behaviour towards water. Cate leads a talented team to ensure that the economy values water so that all important economic actors take meaningful action to conserve this precious resource.
As the Water Security thought leader for the organisation, Cate is responsible for producing research aimed at senior decision makers within both the public and private sector. She is a regular public speaker and has represented CDP on both national and international stages. In addition, she is the UNFCCC High Level Climate Champion Lead for Water, Co-Chair of the Science-Based Targets Network, a member of the Advisory Committee to Stockholm World Water Week, and an advisor to UNGC’s SDG Leadership network.
Dr. Mark Smith is the Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has a Ph.D. in Ecology & Resource Management from Edinburgh University, UK and over 25 years of research and programme management experience in water resources, agriculture, climate and sustainability. Mark is a scientist with areas of specialization in agriculture, forestry and hydrology and a focus on how to make systems change for sustainable development more effective, practical and scalable. Prior to joining IWMI in April 2018, Mark spent 10 years as Director of the Global Water Program at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Prof. Saleemul Huq is the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Professor at the Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) as well as Associate of the International Institute on Environment and Development (IIED) in the United Kingdom as well as the Chair of the Expert Advisory Group for the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and also Senior Adviser on Locally Led Adaptation with Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) headquartered in the Netherlands.
He is an expert in adaptation to climate change in the most Vulnerable developing countries and has been a lead author of the third , fourth and fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and he als advises the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
He has published hundreds of scientific as well as popular articles and was recognised as one of the top twenty global influencers on climate change policy in 2019 and top scientist from Bangladesh on climate change science.
Dr Aditi Mukherji is a Principal Researcher at the International Water Management Institute. Before this, she led the Water and Air Theme at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal. She has over 20 years of experience working on policies and institutions of water resources management with a special focus on water-energy-food nexus and water and climate change adaptation. She is currently a part of the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) team of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is the Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the Water Chapter, and a part of the Core Writing Team of the AR6 Synthesis Report. Aditi is a human geographer by training and has a PhD from Cambridge University, United Kingdom.