What the IPCC Said

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In December 2007, over 10,000 representatives from more than 180 countries gathered in Bali, Indonesia to debate the future of the Earth’s climate, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

This meeting represented an important opportunity: Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had just been jointly awarded a Nobel Prize for their work to raise public awareness of global warming. With the world's attention on climate change as never before, even skeptics had begun to concede that global warming is a major concern. 

Perhaps just as importantly, in the past year, the IPCC had released a new global consensus statement called “Climate Change 2007.” This consensus establishes without a doubt that global warming is being caused by humans, and that its magnitude and impacts are greater than we thought just a few years ago.

Last December, the IPCC released a short summary of that report. That summary, prepared for policymakers, is a challenging read for all but specialists. Yet the information it contains is far too important to be understood by only a select few. In the interest of disseminating the IPCC’s crucial findings as widely as possible, Island Press has prepared a “plain English” version of the panel’s “Summary for Policymakers of Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report” called “What the IPCC Said.” We ask that you read it and share it widely.

If you want to compare "What the IPCC Said" to the panel’s document, click here to access "The Summary for Policymakers of Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report."