As the severe and urgent nature of the climate crisis becomes more apparent, governments around the world must take heed of the experts and Pacific peoples who are sounding the alarm, Ben Bohane writes for the Pacific Wayfinder series.

The world’s peak body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), release their comprehensive reports every seven years or so, with the next due on 9 August. The report will provide an important scientific update ahead of November’s global gathering of leaders in Glasgow for 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties.

The report, known as the ‘Working Group 1 contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)’, is said to focus on the “raw science”. It involves the work of thousands of scientists and vast data inputs to form a picture of how our earth systems are coping with rising temperatures and the associated effects of climate change.

To discuss how this important report is making waves in the Pacific, IPCC Vice Chair Professor Mark Howden and academic Salā Dr George Carter spoke on the new episode of the Pacific Wayfinder podcast.

Professor Howden emphasised the sobering findings of the report:

“It is very serious….the more we know about climate change, the more the science community gets concerned. In a sense, the more we know, the worse it looks. Just one example is that the impacts of climate change are accumulating almost every day,” he said.