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The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report: What’s in it for South Asia?

This report presents key recommendations from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report based on extracted South Asian-specific data, trends and analysis. This is not an official IPCC publication.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced the most comprehensive assessment of climate change ever. The Fifth Assessment Report (http://www.ipcc.ch), which the IPCC is releasing in four parts between September 2013 and November 2014, is the work of 830 expert authors, from 85 countries. Its first three volumes already stretch to 5,000+ pages.

Now the Climate and Development Knowledge Network and Overseas Development Institute have released a succinct guide to the assessment for decision-makers in South Asia.

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report: What’s in it for South Asia? distils the richest material on climate impacts and trends in South Asia, and South Asian experiences in adaptation and mitigation, from the thousands of pages of the Fifth Assessment Report and complemented with similar, peer reviewed case studies from the sub-region. The expert research team has worked under the guidance of IPCC Coordinating Lead Authors and Reviewers to ensure fidelity to the original Fifth Assessment material.

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report: What’s in it for South Asia? aims to make the IPCC’s important material more accessible and usable to South Asian audiences. This guide responds to wide demand for region-specific information.

The guide is part of a suite of materials to promote the key findings of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. An African companion volume has been published; and forthcoming companion volumes will provide a digest of IPCC findings for Latin America and Small Island Developing States. Please visit www.cdkn.org/ar5-toolkit for the publications and a range of communications resources, including free-to-use images and infographics.

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report offers the following key messages for South Asia:

  1. South Asia’s climate is already changing and the impacts are already being felt.
  2. Further climate change is inevitable in the coming decades.
  3. Climate change poses challenges to growth and development in South Asia.
  4. Adaptation will bring immediate benefits and reduce the impacts of climate change in South Asia.
  5. Adaptation is fundamentally about risk management.
  6. South Asia has many adaptation options.
  7. Some low-carbon development options may be less costly in the long run and could offer new economic opportunities for South Asia.
  8. South Asia stands to benefit from integrated climate adaptation, mitigation and development approaches.
  9. International cooperation is vital to avert dangerous climate change and South Asia governments can promote ambitious global action.

Suggested citation

CDKN., 2014. The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report: What’s in it for South Asia.

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