5 July 2010: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has commented on the findings of the review of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) by the Dutch Government, noting that it confirms the key conclusions of the 2007 AR4, and provides recommendations for making future reports more useful and robust.

The review of the IPCC’s Regional Chapters in the Working Group II (WG II) portion of the AR4 was conducted by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Plan Bureau voor de Leefomgeving – PBL) at the request of the Dutch Environment Minister. The objective of the review was to investigate if there were errors in these eight regional chapters of the WG II contribution to the AR4. Authors of the IPCC report provided information and inputs as requested by PBL but played no role in the preparation of this review.

Martin Parry, Co-Chair of AR4 WG II, stated that the review had found that “the key conclusions of the IPCC AR4 are accurate, correct and supported entirely by the leading science in the field.” The reviewers looked at 32 statements on regional impacts of climate change. Their summary is that all statements are “well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors.” The review also states that “the WG II contribution to the AR4 shows ample observational evidence of regional climate-change impacts, which have been projected to pose substantial risks to most parts of the world, under increasing temperatures.”

The IPCC will pay close attention to the PBL’s recommendations for strengthening future reports and will consider these findings in the context of the full set of inputs it receives, especially the findings of the ongoing review by the InterAcademy Council, which was jointly requested by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the IPCC. [IPCC Press Release] [PBL Report] [InterAcademy Council’s Website on the Review of the IPCC]