Abstract:

In early March 2025, the 62nd plenary session of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considered, adopted and released the outline of the report of Working Group II (WGII) of the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), which provides a scientific basis and action guidelines for the next step in the preparation of the AR7. The outline clearly sets out the four major topics of summary, global assessment, regional assessment and thematic assessment in a total of 20 chapters. In addition, it is planned to update the IPCC Technical Guidelines for Assessing Impacts of and Adaptation to Climate Change (1994) and add new content on adaptation tools, modules and drivers. WGII aims to provide a more comprehensive scientific assessment of climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, as well as the latest research progress through systematic risk analysis, inclusive framework design and methodological innovations, and it will provide a scientific basis for global climate policies and actions. This article briefly describes the contents and key points of the global assessment, regional assessment and thematic assessment areas of concern in AR7 WGII. Compared with the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the AR7 WGII presents three new features in its overall structure: (1) The global assessment will be placed before the thematic (sectoral and domain) assessments, and the integrated analysis of cross-scale risks will be strengthened; (2) The assessment of the effectiveness of adaptation measures will be emphasized; (3) New chapters will be added on response to loss and damage, as well as finance. Based on the outline of the WGII report, key research points and important insights are proposed in various areas such as global and regional scales, water resources, agricultural development, public health and livelihoods security, etc., which provide a scientific framework for future research on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, and are of great significance in promoting climate change response measures and realizing the sustainable development goals on a global scale.

Key words: IPCC, Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), Working Group II (WGII), Report outline, Climate change, Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability