United Nations Panel Selects Three Rutgers Researchers as Lead Authors on Next Global Climate Report

Robert Kopp, Pamela McElwee and Kevon Rhiney will be among hundreds of the world’s leading experts working on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment

A United Nations-affiliated science panel has named three Rutgers scientists as lead authors on a report that will serve as the next worldwide assessment of climate change.

Rutgers University-New Brunswick faculty members Robert Kopp, Pamela McElwee and Kevon Rhiney were selected to contribute to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Seventh Assessment Report. The reports produced by the panel are considered the world's leading and most definitive  assessments on the state of climate change.

We are very proud to have them represent us and the rest of the Rutgers community over the years of sustained commitment their positions require.

Julie Lockwood

Director, Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute

Rutgers faculty are among 664 experts from 111 nations to participate as authors and editors in the IPCC’s three working groups. Working Group I deals with the physical science basis of climate change, Working Group II assesses impacts, adaptation and vulnerability and Working Group III analyzes the mitigation of climate change. 

“The IPCC delivers the authoritative global assessment of the scientific, technical and socioeconomic dimensions of climate change,” said Julie Lockwood, a Rutgers ecologist who is director of the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute (RCEI). “Lead authors are selected through a rigorous international process that evaluates nominees based on their scientific expertise and publication record.”

Lockwood noted that Kopp, McElwee and Rhiney are affiliates of RCEI. 

“We are very proud to have them represent us and the rest of the Rutgers community over the years of sustained commitment their positions require,” said Lockwood, who also is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources in the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences within the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, was named a lead author of Working Group I's report Chapter 8, to be titled “Abrupt Change, Low-Likelihood High-Impact Events, and Critical Thresholds, Including Tipping Points, in the Earth System.”

Kopp’s research focuses on past and future sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, the use of climate risk information to inform decision-making and the role of higher education in supporting societal climate risk management. Kopp, who also is director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, was a lead author of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.

McElwee, a professor in the Department of Human Ecology within the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, will be a lead author of Chapter 5, titled “Enablers and Barriers,” of the Working Group III report. She studies the socioecological impacts of global environmental problems, applying her expertise in biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and climate change mitigation and adaptation in terrestrial socio-ecological systems. 

For the IPCC’s earlier Sixth Assessment Report cycle, McElwee was a lead author of the Special Report on Climate Change and Land. Recently, McElwee was the co-chair of another international report, the Nexus Assessment prepared by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

The organization, a frequent partner of the IPCC, adopted its report in December 2024. The document offered decision makers worldwide a comprehensive assessment of the interplay between biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change and explored more than five dozen potential responses to address issues raised in the study. 

Rhiney, an associate professor in the Department of Geography in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, will be a lead author of Chapter 13, titled “Small Islands,” of the Working Group II report. Rhiney also served as a contributing author for the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C (SR1.5), one of three special reports published during the Sixth Assessment cycle.

Rhiney is a broadly trained human-environment geographer whose interdisciplinary research explores the social, economic and environmental justice implications of global environmental change for small islands and developing countries, particularly in the Caribbean. Rhiney’s key research themes include smallholder farmer vulnerability to climate and market forces, adaptation strategies in agriculture, and the socio-political dynamics of post-disaster recovery. Smallholder farmers, considered vital to global food security because they produce a significant portion of the world’s food, cultivate crops or rear livestock on a limited scale, typically managing less than 5 acres of land. 

The Rutgers faculty members and other experts were nominated by governments and IPCC observer organizations and selected by the IPCC Bureau from a global pool of 3,771 nominees.

The panel is the pre-eminent global body for assessing science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks and to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies.  

It also has a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals.

Rutgers is also playing a vital role in providing support to U.S. researchers who wished to apply to participate in the IPCC report. McElwee chairs the new U.S. Academic Alliance for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (USAA-IPCC) and Kopp is a member of its steering committee. The USAA-IPCC nominated 282 scientists for roles in preparing the IPCC report, making up for the U.S. federal government, which normally runs this process. No U.S. government nominations were made by the Trump Administration this cycle. 

The appointed authors will begin their work on assessing relevant literature and preparing drafts of their respective reports, as agreed upon by the IPCC at its 62nd session in Hangzhou, China, in February. 

The three IPCC Working Group reports are expected to be approved in mid-2028, while the Synthesis Report that will incorporate and conclude the entire cycle will be approved by late 2029.

“The appointment of the author teams means that work on the Seventh Assessment Report on the state of climate science can now begin,” said IPCC Chair Jim Skea. “The author teams, drawn from several thousand excellent nominations, ensure outstanding expertise across a range of disciplines.”

Explore more of the ways Rutgers research is shaping the future.