IPCC, 2019: Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems

Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, also known as the Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL), is the second Special Report to be produced in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Cycle (AR6). It has been jointly produced by IPCC Working Groups I, II and III in association with the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Over two years in the making, this report highlights the multiple interactions between climate change and land. It assesses the dynamics of the land-climate system, and the economic and social dimensions of addressing the challenges of land degradation, desertification and food security in a changing climate. It also assesses the options for governance and decision-making across multiple scales. This report is interdisciplinary in nature and brings together an unprecedented number of experts from varying fields of research. Their expertise ranges from agricultural systems and rural livelihoods to nutrition and forestry. Over 52 different countries from all regions of the world were represented in the chapter teams, and, for the first time in an IPCC report, a majority of authors – 53% – were from developing countries. This reflects the important role that developing countries play in climate change research and decision-making, particularly in the context of land.