By Matti Goldberg

At COP30 in Belem, negotiators have again been asked to shape the planet’s future using climate science that does not reflect latest high-quality research. The problem is not the evidence itself. It is the way we organise it for global climate diplomacy.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are supposed to revisit and strengthen their climate plans every five years, informed by a global stocktake of collective progress. The first Global Stocktake wrapped up at COP28 and confirmed the world is off track for limiting warming to 1.5C.

But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC, the world’s gold standard for climate science – delivers its major assessments roughly every seven years. Its Sixth Assessment ended in 2023, and key outputs from the Seventh Assessment may not arrive until after the second Global Stocktake. The Paris process designed to ratchet up ambition is flying partly blind, or incapable of receiving the latest  science in an organised way.

The IPCC reports are trusted precisely because they are cautious, consensus-based and rigorously peer-reviewed. Compressing that machinery into a much shorter cycle would almost certainly weaken quality and trust. But as someone working at the intersection of science and policy, I also see the cost of the status quo.

Today, international climate negotiators effectively face a false choice. On one side is the IPCC “monolith”: a massive, government-approved synthesis that arrives once a decade on a political timeline. It is indispensable, but also inflexible. On the other side is what I think of as the “bazaar”: a constant stream of reports from civil society groups, advocates, modellers, development banks, and others. Many are excellent, but they land in a chaotic, scattered way. There is no shared process for sorting, synthesising and connecting them to the negotiation agenda. Delegations with big analytical teams can navigate the bazaar. Many small and vulnerable countries cannot.

The result is that there is a science deficit in COPs, which is precisely when science matters the most. Small island states and low-lying countries, whose survival depends on the latest information about sea-level rise, extreme events, and loss and damage, have been asking for more regular, decision-ready science. Too often, they walk into negotiations armed with outdated numbers or ad hoc advice, while others arrive with custom models and talking points.

We don’t need a second IPCC to fix this. But we do need a more frequent science track under the UN climate convention. I envision a standing, structured interface that operates between assessment cycles and COPs, is aligned with the Paris timeline, and is designed for speed and usability rather than encyclopedic coverage.

What would that look like?

First, we should upgrade Earth Information Day and the Research Dialogue. Right now, they are one-off afternoon sessions at each COP and SB, respectively, where scientific organisations rattle through slides on the state of the climate system. That is not commensurate with the stakes. Both should evolve into a multi-day science and solutions track, curated by the UNFCCC in collaboration with an independent steering group of researchers from all regions. They should present a coherent, policy-relevant picture of the latest observations, impacts and mitigation and adaptation options, not just a parade of Power Point presentations.

Second, the UNFCCC science workstream – also called “Research and Systematic Observation” (RSO) – should be built out into a work programme consisting of workshops on new, peer-reviewed science on the research needs and priorities identified by countries at the SBs and COPs. These could be a space for the research community and UNFCCC Parties to meet and consider, in a much more hands-on fashion, the challenges and solutions highlighted by the latest science.

Third, the Global Stocktake itself needs to be restructured so that it starts from this shared evidence base. Each stocktake cycle should begin with an organised science segment built on the latest brief. Parties will still disagree on fairness and responsibility – that is politics – but they should not be negotiating from different data.

Some will worry that this gives unelected scientists too much influence. In practice, a stronger, more regular science track would do the opposite of technocratic overreach: it would level the playing field. By giving all countries, especially the most vulnerable, a common, transparent baseline, it would reduce the advantage of those who can afford their own bespoke analysis and make it harder for bad-faith actors to cherry-pick outdated numbers.

The atmosphere does not negotiate. But negotiators can decide whether they want to keep working from a rearview mirror, or finally give themselves something closer to a real-time dashboard. Belem might be where we recognise the problem of irregular science, and find ways to benefit from the bazaar. What’s next is for countries to push the UNFCCC to keep science at the center of the process to solve the climate crisis.

Matti Goldberg is Director of Government Relations, International, at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. He previously spent 15 years with the UN Climate Change secretariat, supporting global climate negotiations towards the Paris Agreement and other multilateral climate frameworks.

Any opinions expressed in this commentary reflect the views of the authors and not of Carbon Pulse.