Bart van den Hurk elected as co-chair IPCC Working Group II
Today, professor Bart van den Hurk, Scientific Director at Deltares, has been elected as co-chair for the 7th Assessment Cycle of the IPCC’s Working Group II. The vote took place during the 59th IPCC plenary meeting in the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, experts volunteer their time as IPCC authors to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks.
Working Groups
The IPCC has three working groups: Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II, dealing with impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability; and Working Group III, dealing with the mitigation of climate change.
Singapore and the Netherlands
Bart will co-chair Working Group II together with Professor Winston Chow, Associate Professor of Urban Climate and Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow based at Singapore Management University (SMU).
The Netherlands and Singapore are close partners working together on climate change, sharing knowledge, and developing pathways for the future. Deltares is also represented in Singapore through NUS-Deltares, the long-lasting knowledge alliance between the National University of Singapore and Deltares.
Priorities
As the new co-chair of Working Group II, Bart has several priorities, including:
- Focusing on vulnerable communities and actors that have the potential to contribute.
- Involving experts from developing countries in the IPCC assessment process.
- Creating a greater overlap between traditional IPCC Working Groups I, II, and III.
- Strengthening the link between IPCC outputs and decisions in the field by hosting more workshops aimed at regions with high adaptation pressure.
I am incredibly honoured to have been elected as the co-chair for Working Group II. For the coming six years, Winston and I will lead the compilation of the science that helps to map, design, and implement the many choices that need to be made to keep societal development match the challenges of our climate in transition. And we will call upon the multitude of experts from around the world that need to contribute to this work.
Bart van den Hurk
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Sixth Assessment Report
The IPCC completed its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) in March 2023. The key findings of the AR6 Synthesis Report are:
- The pace and scale of climate action are insufficient to tackle climate change.
- Multiple, feasible, and effective options are available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change.
- Enabling conditions include finance, technology, capacity building, and international cooperation.
