The IPCC: Forty Years of Great Science in Understanding Climate Change
Language(s): English
Abstract:
This paper, authored by retired US Army Brigadier General and environmental engineer Dr. Wendell Chris King, argues that climate change represents the primary threat to global peace and security in the modern era. Bridging a 36-year military career with extensive academic expertise, King synthesizes personal insights with nearly 40 years of scientific data generated by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The text examines the history of environmental security and details the evolution of the IPCC’s rigorous, risk-based peer-review methodology. By tracking data across six successive Assessment Reports (AR1 through AR6), King demonstrates how scientific confidence has steadily strengthened. Findings that were once conservatively uncertain have matured into the unequivocal conclusion that human activity is the primary driver of global warming. This predictive accuracy is underscored by the fact that the IPCC’s 1990 projection of a 1.0°C temperature increase by 2025 closely matches the actual recorded warming of 1.09°C.
The paper systematically analyses critical climate parameters—such as warming, sea level rise, vanishing snow cover, and extreme weather—and maps them against their direct impacts on human stability. King frames climate change as a critical "threat multiplier" that worsens existing geopolitical vulnerabilities. When environmental shifts deny populations basic human needs, they trigger secondary security crises, including famines, resource scarcity, epidemic diseases, mass migrations, and regional conflicts. This dynamic is prominently illustrated by the melting glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, a vital water source shared by heavily armed, competing nations. Ultimately, King issues an urgent warning against political climate denial, calling for immediate, cooperative global action to implement vital mitigation and adaptation strategies before unpreventable damage overwhelms global security.
Author: Dr. Wendell Chris King, Brigadier General, US Army retired
Editor: Ronald A. Kingham, Executive Director, EDRC
Publisher: Published for the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change (GMACCC) by the Environment & Development Resource Centre (EDRC)
Publication Date: June 2026
Number of Pages: 22
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Cover Photo: IPCC adoption of the Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C., at the 48th Session of the IPCC and the First Joint Session of Working Groups I, II and III. Incheon, Republic of Korea, 1-5 October 2018 - Photo by IISD/ENB | Sean Wu, International Institute for Sustainable Development, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons