How Global Science Supports Our Future Climate

The climate crisis is one of the most pressing challenges of our time; but diverse sources of knowledge may help us navigate it better. This was the thematic focus of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change workshops recently hosted at the University of Reading.

In this live Q&A, Professor Jim Skea (chair of the IPCC) was joined by Rowan Sutton (Met Office), Sarah Honour (Dept. of Energy Security and Net Zero) and Professor Ed Hawkins (University of Reading) to discuss the role of indigenous voices, the withdrawal of the US from climate agreements, and the importance of making climate information accessible for future generations.

This episode was recorded live on February 9, 2026, at the University of Reading.

Find out more about the University of Reading, it's relationship with IPCC and how it has carved out a position at the heart of climate change conversations.

Chapters:

• 02:20 Why the IPCC is looking to involve diverse ‘knowledge systems’
• 04:26 How the UK Government and Met Office work with the IPCC process
• 09:35 What it’s like to be a researcher involved in the IPCC report cycle
•  12:02 How the IPCC has evolved and how it might evolve in the next 40 years
• 21:34 Audience question #1: Impact of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement
• 24:22 Audience question #2: How is the IPCC actively involving diverse voices?
•  26:35 Audience  question #3: How can young people make a positive impact in combatting climate change?

Transcript

Host: The podcast you are about to hear is the live Q and A session from the public lecture inside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was delivered by Professor Jim Skea, a founding member of the UK's Committee on Climate Change and the current chair of the IPCC since 2023. Professor Skea was joined by representatives from the University of Reading and the UK government to discuss issues such as the integral role of indigenous and community knowledge in fighting climate change, the potential effects of the US's withdrawal from the panel, and the importance of making climate information tangible and accessible for future generations. This episode was recorded live at the University of Reading's Palmer lecture theatre on 9th February 2026.

Liz Stephens: Great. So thank you very much, Jim. you've already introduced yourself, you've been introduced, so we'll start with Sarah. Please could you take a moment to introduce yourself to the audience?

Sarah Honour: Good evening everyone. so my name is Sarah Honour. I work, for the Department of Energy, Security and Net Zero in the UK government, and in that role I head the climate science team. So responsible for the team that supports both the whole of the department, but also, most importantly for this conversation, the inputs into the IPCC.

Rowan Sutton: Good evening everybody. My name is Rowan Sutton. I am a professor here at Reading, but I'm also director of the Met Office Hadley Centre. The Hadley Centre is the climate part of the Met Office set up by Margaret, Thatcher in 1990. The Hadley Centre, comes a wide range of activities. We carry out climate monitoring activities looking at how climate is changing. We develop climate models to predict how climate will change in the future. We do fundamental research to address some of the knowledge gaps, such as the things that Jim was talking about. And we work very closely with government, Sarah and her colleagues to ensure that the evidence to inform policy is as pertinent and available as possible.

Ed Hawkins: I'm Professor Ed Hawkins, I'm a professor of climate science, here at the University of Reading. I was a lead author of the last IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, working with one.

Liz Stephens: Great, thank you very much. So Jim, we don't want to give you too much of a break.

The first question will come to you. I'm interested in the workshops that ah, are happening here in Reading this week. you mentioned one is on engaging diverse knowledge systems. I can see a lot of familiar science faces in the audience. perhaps you could tell us a little bit more of why it's, it's not just that sort of pure climate science that you're considering.

Jim Skea: Yeah, I Mean, the governments in IPCC, many of them have been raising the issue of whether we can provide better engagement for knowledge systems that lie outside just pure climate science. And the one that has come up is indigenous knowledge systems, because people, through their culture or long connections with the land, can actually have insights on climate change that perhaps have not been entirely captured. But the most powerful, I think, information, when you combine different types of knowledge together. And that, I think is the critical point I should say. I mentioned we get five to six times as many nominations as place of bill for authors. We were actually nine to one for nominations for this workshop. Just to demonstrate, the kind of interest in that. One of the thing that gratified me was the number of indigenous knowledge holders that are also distinguished scientists in their own right and are bridging the two systems. So I think this is very important. We have a sister panel, not a panel, a platform, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. And they have, ah, probably given greater detailed thought to the way that they engage indigenous peoples than IPCC has. So we have a number of colleagues here coming from ipbes, as it's called, to help us think through some of these issues. It promises to be a fascinating workshop because, indigenous peoples are not shy about asserting their needs. So it's going to be an interesting time.

Liz Stephens: Fantastic. Thank you. Sarah, I was wondering, from the perspective of the UK government, how is it that you work and engage with the IPCC process and how are the findings then used within UK government?

Sarah Honour: Brilliant. Yes. So I think we do it in two main ways. First is that we input into the IPCC, but secondly, we are a really important recipient of what comes out of the IPCC. So Jim, in his talk earlier, talked you through the very complex process that's involved in developing IPCC reports. and, we, my team, on behalf of the whole of the UK government, input very closely in that process into the scoping of the reports to make sure that they answer the

00:05:00

Sarah Honour: questions we're interested in as government, in reviewing those reports when they come out. And then finally in going through those reports in immense detail and sitting through those meetings that Jim mentioned that require a lot of caffeine to get through to make sure those reports really represent our needs and our consensus. So, you know, we have to give and take. The reports have to be agreed by all governments, not just the UK government. So there's a lot of work there to make sure that we can support and engender that consensus to get those reports approved. But Then once they're approved, we then use them in our government process. So as Jim said, the IPCC is the best and most comprehensive assessment of the climate science there is. And that's really important to us because actually there is consensus, isn't necessarily consensus in the wider world about some of those scientific issues actually having a body we can point to and that authoritative view of the science is really important for us as government in making the case for climate action and then using that science in the way we develop policies. For example, the UK has a net zero target and m, that net zero target came from the Climate Change Committee which assessed the science from the IPCC and particularly the Special Report on 1.5. And it made that recommendation which we took forward as government. And again we use the science then, and some of the scientific basis in the IPCC, some of the climate information we provide in our projections that the Metro Office, do for us in terms of then how we then use that to think about the adaptation needs of the uk, how we can prepare the UK for that future climate. And also one thing we do is then we support UK authors, very important, to put into the IPCC and make sure that the system runs as effectively as possible. And then. So what was the second part of the question?

Liz Stephens: Well, I guess how are the findings used?

Sarah Honour: But I think, yeah, I think, yeah.

Liz Stephens: Thank you.

Sarah Honour: Yeah.

Liz Stephens: So Rowan thank you very much. I know Rowan you work as the Met Office, work very closely with UK government departments. But how is it that the Met Office works with the IPCC process? And I guess as well, what sort of exciting Met Office should we expect to see in the next IPCC report as well?

Rowan Sutton: okay, thanks Liz. So, well, three ways in which the Met Office makes specific contributions to the IPCC. So first of all, I mentioned the climate monitoring area. So for example, we produce one of the key global, climate observation data sets to show how global temperatures are changing. And of course those are crucial resources for, you know, not just for the UK but for the globe so that we can understand how climate change is unfolding in all parts of the world. So the monitoring activities are crucial, secondly in the modeling area. So we're privileged in the UK that we have one of the world leading climate modeling capabilities. So these are computer simulation capabilities to simulate how climate has changed in the past and then project how it will change in the future. So we produce the models that give us that capability. But then crucially we also work with other centers around the world to bring the results from our model together with other models so that the IPCC can do the work of assessing across all the different lines of evidence to produce that consensus position, and we contribute to that coordination, as well as producing our own model simulations. And then I said three, but I think I'm going to go for four areas, sorry. The third area is the fundamental research. So again as Jim emphasized, there are areas where we still have real knowledge gaps. So in relation to how extremes are changing. And Jim illustrated that, well, this is really important if we are to design adaptation measures that are going to be robust and resilient to ongoing changes in change climate. We need to understand the rate at which extreme rainfall events are changing, for example. And there are fundamental knowledge gaps in that area. That's the focus for research in the Met Office. And lastly, we contribute of course by contributing authors, as Jim mentioned. So there are six, Met Office colleagues who are lead authors of the reports in the seventh assessment cycle. and they're contributing mainly in working group one, the physical climate science, but also in working group two.

Liz Stephens: Great, thank you. So I noticed quite a mix of people in the audience today, but there are definitely a few early career researcher faces in the room. Ed, you've been involved in the IPCC process for several cycles now. I'm wondering if you can think back to that first time that you entered one of the meetings and ah, what was the experience like for you? Were you prepared for it? Did it surprise you? Perhaps you could say some more?

Ed Hawkins: Yeah, I guess the first time you meet the IPCC is through when you read the report probably as a young researcher and you see all the knowledge combined together in one place, which is a fantastic resource for all scientists to have at their fingertips. and so it's very valuable for scientists as well as for policymakers. And then later

00:10:00

Ed Hawkins: later on you might get involved as a contributing author helping write a little something section or paragraph here or there when you have particular expertise. And then if you're lucky enough to be accepted as a lead author then first of all they're all volunteers. I think that's important to emphasize. And it's also important that they don't get paid. This is on top of their day job, people, the legal authors commit hundreds if not thousands of hours of unpaid voluntary time to write this report. Hundreds of people do that, and often it will revolve late nights, particularly with time zone issues. You end up In a chapter with authors from all over the world. And so there's a lot of late nights, a lot of work outside normal work hours. I think that needs to be acknowledged that people give up their spare time because they see how valuable and useful it is. But it's wonderful to enter that, room with your other chapter authors, many of whom you have never met before. the community is huge and you can build long lasting friendships and collaborations, with those other scientists that you meet through this process. Although you may have an outline as Jim highlighted, the outline is really set for you. You have a lot of freedom to develop the chapter as works best. You may identify gaps that you want to be able to fill, but you're going to talk about particular designs. the literature is not there. And so actually you go away and work together with some colleagues to fill that gap. Ah, so you can write a better report. but it's a very intensive, very rewarding process. Very frustrating at times. huge time commitment, but very, very rewarding overall.

Liz Stephens: Great. It sounds like it's been a good opportunity for you as well in building more science. Jim, you were mentioning, of course we're on the seventh assessment report now. There's been six before it. There's been many special reports, Nobel Prize. I was wondering over those 40 years, and I think, I think I can say that you've been involved for quite a while because you mentioned that yourself. How have you seen it changed and maybe how has it evolved alongside the science, but also, dare I say, some of the political things as well.

Jim Skea: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's quite interesting because when people talk about my career in IPCC, I start to feel very old, as if I've been there for decades. In fact, I've been in and out of, of IPCC. I was in the second cycle in the 1990s. I didn't have so much involvement third and fourth before I came back again. But I can tell you that one of the biggest differences actually comes back to the very topic that we're dealing with, here at one of the workshops. When I was in the second cycle, we were not flooded by literature. You had to go out and look for was really hard work to get the information. Now the challenge is how we make sense of the flood of information that's coming in. So I think that world has changed a lot. One thing, talking to people who've been engaged in IPCC, a long time, it's not a political organization, but it operates in a political context. And if you don't have your political antennae out, that would be foolish. I think in the very early days of IPCC there were existential questions are human beings causing climate change? And that made for quite a controversial time I think in the earlier years. And I think perhaps that greater political controversy has come back because of the very certainty we have at the moment about the physical science that now means we need to think hard about the actions that need to be taken. So I think things have gone up and down in terms of the kind of exposure to some of the difficult issues.

Sarah Honour: Thank you.

Liz Stephens: And Rowan I know we've worked together before on aspects that we're forecasting the weather or forecasting the climate, but can I get you to forecast how the IPCC reports might need to change over the next 40 years?

Rowan Sutton: So one innovation which Jim didn't mention, although he did in his presentation. So the cross cutting reports M. so like the report on cities which is forthcoming, that was an innovation. so the idea there is to take a particular topic that governments recognise is important and urgent, typically interdisciplinary, so to bring together author teams across the breadth of IPCC in order to address an urgent topic. And I think that was a really important innovation and I'm sure there'll be more cross cutting reports in the future, although it is a challenge to manage those alongside the regular assessment cycle. there are other needs though that I think we need to kind of think about as a community. One is from a climate science perspective there's a clear need to evolve towards more operational capabilities, more routine, semi automated ways of delivering climate information as soon as possible so that it's right there to inform decisions as rapidly as we possibly can. At the moment we don't have that capability now. I don't think it would be possible to fully automate assessment. But as ah, Jim talked about

00:15:00

Rowan Sutton: with the workshop this week, looking at whether aspects of assessment could be automated I think is important. The last thing that I'll mention is that I do believe that there is a gap in the area of risk assessment. So many of the audience, I'm sure you'll be aware that the UK conducts national climate change risk assessments every five years and is currently in the process of doing the fourth climate change risk assessment. And m many countries do the same. you might not be aware and indeed you might be surprised that there's never been an internationally mandated global climate change risk assessment. And I and some others have a view that this is A really an important gap in the science policy landscape. a risk assessment is not the same as a science assessment. The IPCC produces a huge amount of information that is relevant to understanding risks, but it's not in charge to produce a risk assessment. And it's only by having a risk assessment that you can really lay out with clarity what's at stake and crucially, what's avoidable. I mean, the purpose of a risk assessment is to motivate action. So I feel that that's a gap in the science policy landscape and I hope it's one that can be filled perhaps in the near future.

Liz Stephens: Thank you, Rowan. Sarah, we know that the primary audience for IPCC is policymakers. Perhaps you could say a little bit more about how you think these reports or the outcomes of the reports might be useful for others. for example, what might the public gain from them?

Sarah Honour: Thanks. Yeah, as you said, government is the primary audience, but certainly not the only one. and the fact that this room is filled with people suggests there is an interest beyond policymakers, in the reports. And actually you can see that, the last time when, six of US Assessment M report was published, there were headlines not just in the uk, but around the world about the key findings. That shows there is a really strong interest from the public and others in climate science and the assessments of the IPCC. But I think it goes much broader than that. Clearly there is a huge audience, scientific community as well. Ed talked about that, but I remember from my master's days as well, looking at those reports, they're important foundation for a lot of other research that then builds off that. But also actually in terms of actors in climate and climate action, they are very important. I've already mentioned, you know, the underpinning, use of those reports for climate risk assessments, as, Rowan has said, and then for. So then doing our national risk assessment, but also risk assessments around the world, and then for business as well and for industry. So they're fundamental. I mean, I don't think many of these people actually sit down and read the reports. I don't think many people actually do. But as a resource for actually going and taking that are very important. And then there's a hugely valuable role that scientists and all others play in taking those IPCC reports and communicating them to the rest of the world. And I think that's something we really need to focus on. the reports aren't written for the general public. Even the summary for policymakers, most policymakers probably don't necessarily Read in quite the detail. The figures are very complex, but, but what sits behind that is the most authoritative assessment of the science. And therefore then using that to communicate that to the public is essential. And I think others, both on this panel and more broadly do really valuable work there.

Liz Stephens: great, thank you. So Ed, final of my questions anyway. the IPCC process and climate science in general is discussed in the media a lot and it's heavily scrutinized. and I know that we can see that you don't shy away from public attention with your climbing straps, but perhaps you can tell us a little bit more about what it's like to be under that sort of public scrutiny.

Ed Hawkins: Yeah, I mean you certainly feel pressure and responsibility. there's a lot of time pressure, they take a long time to write, but there are certain periods where you're trying to do things in not much time because it's a very intense process and you certainly feel a lot of responsibility to the community as a whole to draft the best report that you can to be used more widely. but I think I personally anyway felt a lot of responsibility for the future as well. So I remember during the plenary where we had to approve the summary for policymakers, some of the scientists are there. We did our success report online for the first time because of COVID and it lasted two weeks, all different time zones. So a lot of late nights, and I was there, I remember sitting there and I wasn't the only one with a, young child in my lap getting involved and discussing the science as we were trying to get everything approved. And so yes, you have a lot of responsibility for the future generations who are going to feel the worst consequences were already being consummated now, but those future generations are going to feel the worst effects. and so I was not going to be scientists there holding the kid, but there were members of the government delegations also there. and so yes, you certainly feel that, in those final stages, and I think we also, because of that, Sarah's point about the public understanding,

00:20:00

Ed Hawkins: I think we need to do a better job. The IPCC could do more actually on the public communication of science. The summary force makers are written in a very technical language and I think we could do a much better job of translating that language, for teachers, for the public, for people who are then going to take that information and teach the next generations and the current generations about ah, what it means, what the science means and what the implications Are, and I think the ARGUS is bigger role if it can, because it's a trusted voice, in communicating those messages.

Liz Stephens: Yeah, thank you very much. And a good message to the other panelists as well. So thank you.

Liz Stephens: I would like to open up now for questions from the room but I know that we've got a question from one of our PhD students.

Audience Member #1: My question plays to your political antenna mentioned earlier about the impact of recent US decisions. So last month the US left the Paris agreement again. They also announced the withdrawal from the IPCC and the UNFCCC taking effect next January. But what impact does that have on the work for AR7, the Assessment Report 7 and the IPCC more broadly? Really appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Jim Skea: I think this is for me. Is that right? Yeah, I usually get these ones just to say you might be surprised but it has not had as much impact as you might imagine. What the IPCC rules say we don't have a membership list. we have a statement that says that any country that's a member of the UN or the World Meteorological Organization can't participate in IPCC activities. So people don't withdraw necessarily in that active kind of way. And in fact the United States did not participate in either of the plenary sessions that took place in 2025. So nothing. The announcement effectively has made no difference. It's just confirmed the kind of practice that we've seen already. The bigger concerns were we have a co chair of Working Group 3 on mitigation who's based in the United States. She's now moved to the University of Maryland. She was elected by the whole membership of IPCC and she's continuing to do her job and fulfill the role. We also have 50 US based authors in the seventh assessment cycle as well. They were nominated by US observer organizations in a process facilitated by the American Geophysical Union on their travel and subsistence is being supported by US based philanthropies. So ah, the US citizenry is still engaging in IPCC and I think I would make that point. But just to say in terms of who or who does not participate in IPCC meetings, we have 195 countries eligible to participate. Choosing my words very carefully, we typically get 110, 120 countries any one time, one country more or we regret anybody not being there. But one country more or less, the meetings work with or without them.

Liz Stephens: Thank you. Any more questions? This one in the middle here.

Audience Member #2: I wanted to ask. So there has been talk today about Bringing in indigenous knowledge and knowledge from scientists, from across the world. But how do you ensure that people's voices are being represented from regions where like people, those people might not have the resources to participate in the panel process or the governments might, due to their own political interests, might be blocking participation of scientists as authors or other voices in other capacities.

Jim Skea: Yeah. Okay. So the way we do things, if people are located in a developing country, they get travel and subsistence funding from the IPCC Trust Fund to attend meetings. And we have now got to the point there is a rough balance between scientists from developed on developing countries in IPCC activities. It used to be very biased towards the developed side. It's no longer the case. We are pretty much, pretty much at parity. The issue of, one issue that we do need to think about is the degree to which the focal points of IPCC draw on a wide range of networks to nominate authors. and it's something that we do need to think about. We undertake training activities to try and do that. The question that is going to come up this

00:25:00

Jim Skea: week is the very delicate one about whether we talk about Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge, IK&LK, which IPCC does, or we do like it best, and talk about indigenous and local knowledge ilk. It is one of these theological issues that we are going to have to come and address this week. But it's not just a matter of semantics. There are some real substantial challenges underlying it that actually relate to the second part of your question.

Liz Stephens: Thank you. Great question as well. So just up behind there. Thank you.

Audience Member #3: What would be your words of advice and call to action really for young people to help them make a positive impact in combating the climate crisis?

Rowan Sutton: The thing that I always want to emphasize again and again is that because some of the reporting kind of suggests otherwise, that the future, the future is not determined, the future of our climate is not determined. There is a wide range of possibilities, laid out very well in the IPCC. And what happens, you know, how much further, warming we have, whether warming continues for many decades or centuries, or whether we halt global warming and deliver a stable climate. a livable planet for all is a phrase that David Lammy's used and others. which of these possibilities happens depends on greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. And these are not determined. So this is, we have a huge level of agency and we have to make that very, very clear. Now we all understand, you know, exercising that Agency is very complicated but it needs all of us in all the ways that we can imagine. It needs leadership in many many different forms in many different ways. It needs effective communication, it needs engagement with in all societies in all sorts of different ways. But there is that huge agency. and the other side of agency of course is around the resilience adaptation side. Again the damage from extreme weather and climate events is not inevitable. we can restrict, limit that damage by a whole range of ways. Again very well made out in the IPCC and we need to do that. We need to put in place those mechanisms. In the uk the Climate Change Committee is in the process of producing for the first time what's going to be called a well adapted uk. So this is a vision of what the UK ah needs to look like in order to adapt well to the changes in club that have already happened and those that are going to happen further. so we have huge agency, there's a vast amount we have to do. We need everybody on board. The young leaders in the, in the Reading Fellowship program I'm sure can make huge contributions.

Sarah Honour: Okay. Looking at the age profile I'm not entirely sure we're the best people to advise but could do my best. I mean one, I mean I agree with what Rowan has said but one other observation would make is I think over the last 10 years I've seen a real change in actually the desire for organizations to really listen to and engage with youth. current government is very keen on listening and hearing and there are you know, things being put in place. But also you know, the UNFCCC negotiations, there's a really strong emphasis on youth, youth voices. But in supporting people to come together and not only to express their views so that they can be listened to and taken account of because it's really important. The decisions we make now will have implications for many years to come. So actually recognizing that and putting in place the structures both to formally listen to people but also then to support people to take action and have the agency which Rowan was talking about

Ed Hawkins: I will add, I think we need more conversations and more stories. so I think we need more conversations. I think we need to encourage the young people particularly to have conversations about climate. It can often be quite a difficult thing to talk about, you might shy away from. But I think we need to try and get over that and talk about the actions we're all individually taking. talk about whether you've got a heat pump at home or whether you've got an electric car or whether you're cycling more, walking more or changing your diet in a reasonable way and ah, talk about it with your friends and your family and your colleagues to make it normal, to make it, you know, something we've been doing. So I think we need to have more conversations about the choices, because also I think that we will listen to people who are our friends and our family and our colleagues who live in tribes if you like. We trust people that we share experiences with. And so having conversations in our own groups I think is really important.

00:30:00

Ed Hawkins: we also need to tell better stories about the opportunities we have have in making different choices. We need to show that the choices we make can make a difference. We need to demonstrate that we can recover from disasters as well. We can talk about you know, when we do have weather related disasters which are made worse by climate change, that we can recover and tell stories about how communities are responding. We need to tell stories about the actions and the positive view of the future that we might choose to live in in a world where more sustainable, and less reliant on fossil fuels and lots of good positive stories to tell, to act on that agency that we have.

Liz Stephens: Great, thank you very much. Can we all give a big thanks to our panelists?

00:30:42