A new year of meetings to provide a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio – economic impacts: it’s now available the new calendar of 2012 meetings for IPCC secretariat, by the Italian IPCC Focal Point (see the table below).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with the aim of providing decision makers with a scientific evaluation of the available literature on climate change and its impacts, adaptation and mitigation strategies. It does not carry out any research, nor does it monitor climate related
data or parameters, but it reviews and assesses the most recent
scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide
relevant to the comprehension of climate change.
The IPCC is an intergovernmental body. It is open to all member countries of the United Nations (UN) and WMO. Each government has a National Focal Point who coordinates IPCC activities at the national level. The IPCC National Focal Point can be considered the connection between
IPCC and the national scientific community as well as the public, with the intention to make easy mutual information exchange about the relevant on-going activities.
The IPCC work has three Working Groups (WG), a Task Force and a Task Group; the activities of each Working Group and of the Task Force are coordinated and administrated by a Technical Support Unit.
The Working Group I (WG I) focuses on the scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change. In particular, the main topics assessed by WG I include: climate observations, climate models; climate projections, causes and attribution of climate change, etc.

The Working Group II (WG II) assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, negative and positive effects of climate change, and options for adapting to it.

The Working Group III (WG III) focuses on climate change mitigation (that is, preventing or reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving activities that remove them from the atmosphere). The Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) is responsible for the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (IPCC-NGGIP), while the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impacts and Climate Analysis (TGICA) was established to facilitate co-operation between the climate modeling and climate impacts assessment communities.
The main activity of the IPCC is to periodically supply Assessment Reports on the state of knowledge on climate science. It also realizes Special Reports and Technical Papers on topics where scientific information and recommendation are judged essential. In addition, the IPCC provides the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with scientific support (see IPCC publications).

For further information, visit the IPCC official web site.

Look at the calendar of meetings:

Calendar of 2012 meetings for IPCC Secretariat
6 – 8 Feb. IPCC: Task Group on Data and Scenario for Impact and Climate Analysis (Stanford, CA, USA)
12 Mar. IPCC: Executive Committee Meeting (WMO, Geneva, Switzerland)
13 – 14 Mar. IPCC: 45th Session of the IPCC Bureau (WMO, Geneva, Switzerland)
14 – 17 Mar. IPCC: WG II – Chapter 28 Meeting (Copenhagen, Denmark)
17 – 18 Mar. IPCC: WG III – Second Expert Meeting Scenarios of AR5 (Wellington, New Zealand)
19 – 23 Mar. IPCC: WG III – Second Lead Author’s Meeting (Wellington, New Zealand)
24 – 25 Mar. IPCC: WG II – Africa Chapter Lead Author (CLA) Meeting (Cape Town, South Africa)
26 – 30 Mar. IPCC: WG II – Chapter 22 Writing Workshop Meeting (Cape Town, South Africa)
16 – 20 Apr. IPCC: WG I – Third Lead Authors Meeting and Technical Summary Writing Team Meeting (Marrakech, Morocco)
6 – 9 Jun. IPCC: 35th session (Dubrovnik, Croatia (TBC)
11 – 13 Jun. IPCC: IPCC: First Core Writing Team 1 (CWT1) Meeting for the AR5 Synthesis Report (Dubrovnik, Croatia (TBC))0
22 – 26 Oct. IPCC: WG II – Third Lead Author’s Meeting (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
3 – 4 Nov. IPCC: WG III – Third Expert meeting on Scenarios of AR5 (TBD)

ABBREVIATIONS
AR5 = IPCC 5th Assessment Report
TBD = To be decided
WG = Working Group

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