Overview
- The week-long IPCC plenary in Addis Ababa concluded without consensus among the panel's 195 member states on when the next major assessment will be published.
- A group of large oil- and coal-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia and India with support from China, pushed to move the report cycle back to 2029 to give developing countries more time to contribute, while many other delegations sought a 2028 publication.
- The meeting also failed to agree on the IPCC's planning cycle and budget, creating procedural obstacles to clearing authorship schedules, review timelines, and funding needed to produce the reports on their usual timetable.
- Climate experts described the breakdown as unprecedented for an organisation that normally operates by consensus, with Leo Meyer saying the panel has long functioned as a 'consensus machine' and that this disagreement is highly unusual.
- If key assessments are published after the November 2028 UN climate conference, negotiators will have less up-to-date scientific evidence to assess Paris Agreement progress and to press countries to speed emissions cuts, weakening the reports' direct influence on global policy.