Frank Geels selected as Lead Author by the IPCC for its 6th Assessment Report

The SCI’s Professor Frank Geels has been selected as a Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC*).

Contributions from three working groups will be published in 2021, followed by the Synthesis Report in 2022. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II is responsible for impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III assesses the mitigation of climate change

Professor Geels will be part of Working Group III and will be lead author for Chapter 5 on ‘Demand, services and social aspects of mitigation’.

From 2858 nominations, the IPCC has invited 721 experts to contribute to AR6. In the original press release, IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee commented that: "These author teams, drawn from the hundreds of excellent nominations the IPCC was fortunate to receive, provide us with the necessary expertise across a range of disciplines to conduct the assessment"

• View in full on the IPPC website

Lead authors for the working groups were nominated by government representatives, heads of international organisations and members of the IPCC Bureau and selected by the bureaus of the three IPCC working groups.

Professor Geels commented:

‘I am delighted to work with a group of world-leading scholars on assessing climate mitigation research with regard to demand, social acceptance of solutions, sectors/systems, capacity for change, feasible rates of change, actors and their relationships.’

*The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policy makers with regular scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks as well as to put forwards adaptation and mitigation strategies.