Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the IPCC is open to all members of the UN and WMO (World Meteorological Organization). The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with former US vice-president Al Gore ‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change’.

The IPCC's role is to assess the relevant scientific, technical, and socio-economic information openly and transparently and to come to an understanding of the scientific basis of the risk of climate change and its potential impact, and the options and possibilities of mitigation or adaptation. The IPCC is not a research or monitoring body and it bases its assessments on published peer reviewed scientific and technical literature.