Under a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario, the IPCC will soon be bankrupt
There is turmoil at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There is disagreement over deadlines, and with the loss of US support, a serious financial shortfall looms. To put it in the IPCC’s own terms: if we do nothing, the IPCC will be bankrupt in a few years’ time.
Image created with ChatGPT
Marcel Crok
Date: 23 October 2026
The UN’s climate panel, the IPCC, is in the midst of an unprecedented crisis. The Dutch media were full of it last week. “Complete chaos at UN climate panel: no agreement, no budget and no report?”, headlined the NOS. “Talks at authoritative climate panel IPCC have completely stalled”, reported RTL Nieuws.
The Panel met in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) for its annual meeting, where, amongst other things, agreements were to be reached on the publication date of the next IPCC report (the seventh; the sixth was published in 2021) and on funding. Things went wrong on both counts. The current chair of the IPCC, Jim Skea, decided on Friday evening to suspend the meeting because participants from the least developed countries and small island states, in particular, needed to catch their flights home. Continuing would have been at the expense of the “inclusivity” of the process, according to the IPCC.
At first glance, these seem like trivial matters. Countries in favour of ambitious climate policy want the report to be ready in time for a major political climate conference in 2028. There, progress on the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement will be discussed. Some countries (including Saudi Arabia, Russia, India and China) want a postponement until 2029, arguing that developing countries need more time to participate. For the time being, those countries have ‘won’. In the words of the NOS: “The fact that IPCC Chair Jim Skea has now adjourned the meeting without an agreement on that timeline or the budgets, is seen as a victory for a number of countries with fossil fuel interests, who want to delay the report until after the 2028 climate summit.”
No flight tickets or hotels
But as always, money also plays a part. President Trump has withdrawn the US entirely from the IPCC. And it just so happens that the US has been by far the IPCC’s most important source of funding. America accounted for over a quarter of the IPCC’s budget. Many people, including those critical of the IPCC, believe that this involves large sums of money. Nothing could be further from the truth. The big money is not involved in the IPCC – the body that publishes the scientific assessments – but in climate policy itself, a process that falls under the remit of another UN entity, the UNFCCC.
The IPCC’s budget is negligible. In 2024, the budget amounted to just over 5 million euros, of which nearly 2 million came from the US. Contributions to the IPCC are voluntary. Eighty percent of the 195 countries affiliated with the IPCC have never contributed a single cent. Dutchman Bart van den Hurk of Deltares is currently co-chair of the Working Group 2 report (which examines the impact of climate change). Two hundred and thirty scientists from 91 countries are contributing to that report. In the RTL Nieuws article, he explains why funding remains important even now. “[…] now that no budget has been set, there is no money for flight tickets and hotels for travellers from developing countries.”
The IPCC is keen to be ‘inclusive’, and for scientists from developing countries, the IPCC meetings offer a chance to travel abroad at all. With the withdrawal of US support, that opportunity is now being denied them. That is the source of the frustration. It is telling that other countries are unwilling to fill a gap of just two million euros a year. That is apparently how important the IPCC is.
The Netherlands did not contribute any funds to the IPCC in 2024 and 2025, probably because Deltares is home to the so-called Technical Support Unit (TSU). The Rijksuitgaven.nl website shows a substantial additional contribution to Deltares in 2023, which is presumably intended for setting up this TSU.
Business-as-usual scenario
Earlier this year, we reported on Indepen that, after years of criticism, the IPCC had finally abandoned an extremely doomsday scenario, which was based on absurd assumptions about future coal use and led to extreme global warming by 2100. Now, a doomsday scenario hangs over the IPCC itself. In a article published in March this year, the IPCC sets out various scenarios for its financial future. Let us, entirely in keeping with the IPCC’s tradition, highlight the bleakest scenario.
This clearly shows that countries’ contributions peaked in 2023 at over 8 million Swiss francs (CHF; the franc is worth slightly more than a euro) and have been falling ever since. Under a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario, the IPCC expects expenditure to rise in the coming years. The accumulated buffer will evaporate, and by 2029 the organisation will be in the red.
The annual climate negotiations (the next round begins next month in Antalya) involve hundreds to thousands of billions of dollars. The IPCC is tasked with providing countries with the ‘best’ scientific insights into the state of the climate and relevant policy options. Yet countries appear to have little or no interest in this. It will be interesting to continue monitoring the purple line in the graph above over the coming years. It symbolises the world’s growing disinterest in climate change.
Marcel Crok
Marcel Crok is a Dutch science journalist who has been writing full-time about the climate debate and climate policy since an award winning article about the notorious hockey stick graph in 2005. He published two books in Dutch (De Staat van het Klimaat (The State of the Climate) and was co-author of the book Ecomodernisme (Ecomodernism)). With the British independent researcher Nic Lewis he wrote an extensive report about climate sensitivity, titled A Sensitive Matter. He was asked by the Dutch government to become expert reviewer of the IPCC AR5 report. Together with the Dutch climate institutes KNMI and PBL, Crok set up an international discussion platform Climate Dialogue.
In 2019, Crok and emeritus professor Guus Berkhout founded the Clintel Foundation. They published the World Climate Declaration, which has now been signed by over 2000 scientists and experts. Together with Andy May and a team of scientists from the Clintel network, Crok contributed to and edited the book The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC.
The article you have just read was made possible by our donors.
Every day, Clintel publishes articles on climate, energy and science. We also translate and share international analyses in multiple languages, produce videos, publish reports and organize conferences and events around the world.
We receive no government funding and rely entirely on the support of our donors. Your support helps us promote independent research and contribute to a more open and balanced debate on climate and energy issues.
Would you like to support our work? Choose the option that suits you best:
• Become a Friend of Clintel – support us with an annual contribution
• Make a recurring donation – provide ongoing support and help us plan ahead
• Make a one-time donation – every contribution helps
Thank you for your support.
more news
Roger Pielke Jr.: “Don’t accept the label climate sceptic so easily”
In his first of two recent lectures for Clintel, Roger Pielke Jr. examined the politicized debate over climate change. His central argument was that climate change is real and deserves serious attention, but that public discussion frequently goes far beyond what the scientific evidence supports. He also described how he was a target of political attacks, including some from the Obama White House.
Australian Bureau of Meteorology in trouble for copy-pasting temperature records
Jennifer Marohasy gives an update about the scandal surrounding the temperature records of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Its digital file showed August 1867 and August 1907 as identical on all 31 days, to a tenth of a degree. But that’s not the only problem.
The Climate Narrative is Collapsing
The climate house of cards is collapsing, as became clear last week at the IPCC meeting in Ethiopia. The climate narrative has never had any substance, and now that the flow of funding is being cut off, there will soon be nothing left, says Wim Röst, Chair of the Clintel Board.
The post Under a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario, the IPCC will soon be bankrupt appeared first on Clintel.
Please consider helping!
Awake Freedom TV On Roku is Broken! 🙂
I could no longer maintain the costs on my own, so I moved the off of a dedicated server which was needed for the TV platform to work. On top of that, I want to build an app Awake Freedom TV app, for mobile phones. We need your help to first resurrect our TV channel, and then build the mobile app. In order to do that, I need a minimum of 800/month on subscription payments. Please help anyway you can with the form below.
Leave A Comment