Missing in action: capacity and capacity building in the IPCC’s AR 6

Abstract

Capacity building is recognized as one of three means of implementation (MOI) within the Paris Agreement, along with finance and technology. There is a good reason for this, namely that all aspects of climate action require multiple forms of capacity. In fact, it could be argued that capacity is foundational even to the other two MOIs as advancing both finance and technology requires a variety of capacities across multiple specific contexts. The Global Stocktake (GST) recognized the importance of capacity building for the achievement of the Paris Agreement and included its assessment within its evaluation of progress. However, unlike the other two MOIs, no chapter within the IPCC AR6 explicitly attempts to synthesize the state of knowledge about capacity or capacity building for climate action, and coverage of capacity remains scattered across the report. In this commentary we briefly reflect on the coverage of capacity and capacity building in the IPCC’s AR6 and develop some initial proposals for how knowledge about this key MOI could be better included in future assessment processes.