Professor Myles Allen to set out science surrounding Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal

03 March 2017

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Professor Myles Allen, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Net Zero Carbon Investment Initiative, has been named as a lead author on the next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which will inform next year’s discussions on actioning the commitments of the Paris Climate Agreement.

The report, ‘Global Warming of 1.5ºC: an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty’ will be launched in September 2018, in time for talks scheduled later in the year to facilitate the uptake of the Paris Climate Agreement, forged in 2015.

The IPCC publishes regular special reports, alongside its lengthier assessment reports, every five to six years, on specific topics such as renewable energy and extreme weather. The 1.5ºC report will evaluate current scientific thinking and focus on the available policy options with the intention to set out what’s to be gained by limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, as well as the steps needed to get there within sustainability and poverty eradication goals.

Professor Allen, Leader of the Climate Research Programme at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, will act as a lead author on the first chapter of the report, which will set out the science surrounding 1.5°C, including exploration of probability, overshoot and stabilisation, as well as elaborating on key concepts central to understanding the report, looking at assessment and methodologies across spatial and time scales, and considering the treatment of uncertainty.

Professor Allen previously served as a lead author on the 3rd Assessment report in 2001 and as review editor on the 4th Assessment report in 2007.