Keynote address by the IPCC Chair Jim Skea at the Joint ODI-FAO event: “Just Transition for Agrifood Systems: Decent Livelihoods, Women’s Empowerment and Climate Resilience”

London Climate Action Week 2026, 26 June 2026
ODI Global

Good morning. I do feel privileged for the opportunity to share a few insights from the perspective of climate science and my own professional experience at the start of this event on just transition and agrifood systems.

I feel humble about this because all my background is actually in energy systems. But let me try and rescue my credibility. As the Chair of the IPCC for this cycle I am hosted by the International Institute for Environment Development, which is giving me a lot of opportunity to engage with relevant issues. In the last IPCC cycle, I was the Co-Chair of the Working Group III and co-led the management of the Special Report on Climate Change and Land. I’ll also say that for five years, I chaired Scotland’s Just Transition Commission, which took a deliberately broad framing of just transition issues, and it encompassed both agriculture and the demand side, as well as the supply side. And I may say that was not an academic exercise. I was holding the ring with businesses, trade unions, community groups, and farmers. We had real farmers on the commission, so we were addressing the issues.

My remarks will draw mainly on experience from the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land and the Just Transition Commission experience. I’ll then set out plans for the coverage of just transition issues with respect to agriculture and land management in the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle.

Turning first to the IPCC Land report. The Summary for Policymakers did not mention “just transition” explicitly, but it made many relevant points – this was back in 2019 – before the concept of “just transition” acquired the prominence it has now.