2026 Meeting of German IPCC Community discusses 1.5°C limit and future of the IPCC

Discussions focused on expectations for the IPCC, a more difficult geopolitical context and new conditions for assessments.

On 21 January 2026, Dr Steffen Bauer represented IDOS at the German IPCC Conference 2026 in Berlin. At the invitation of the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUKN) and the Federal Ministry of Research (BFTR), and organised by the German IPCC Coordination Office, around 100 representatives from science, civil society, business, policy, and administration met to discuss the ongoing work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Two themes were central to the meeting. On the one hand, the relevance of the 1.5°C limit of global warming (the objective of the Paris Climate Agreement to limit the average global warming relative to pre-industrial levels) for the 7th IPCC Assessment Report (AR7), notably with regard to the scientific handling and communication of so-called “overshoot” scenarios, which assume a temporary exceeding of 1.5°C.

On the other hand, expectations for the IPCC and its future proceeding. Corresponding discussions revolved in particular around a geopolitical context that has become more difficult, the appropriate integration of reports and recommendations from climate and biodiversity science, for example through closer cooperation between the IPCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), as well as the changing framework conditions for scientific assessments due to the dynamic development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Across the discussions, participants also reflected upon the ramifications of the US withdrawal from the IPCC and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and how the scientific community in Germany and Europe is responding to it.