With US President Donald Trump and other sceptics calling climate change a hoax, the UN’s climate science body must tell the world in a “very clear way” that humans are heating the planet, its chairman told AFP.Jim Skea, a Scottish professor, chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which held a five-day meeting in a skyscraper outside Paris this week to begin drafting the next major UN climate assessment.The gathering of more than 600 scientists from around the world, which ends Friday, kicked off a process that will culminate in the publication of the massive report by 2028 or 2029.Established in 1988, the IPCC assesses global climate research and issues comprehensive reports every five to seven years to inform policymakers and guide climate negotiations.QUESTION: You said recently it is “almost inevitable” the world will cross the 1.5C warming threshold. If this happens before the next IPCC assessment is published, what should it emphasise to remain relevant and impactful?ANSWER: “The messages are that if we want to return global warming to 1.5C, it’s quite clear what steps need to be taken. We do need very significant reductions in emissions from land use and from energy. And we also need to start thinking about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale. And there are a lot of knowledge gaps associated with that.”QUESTION: France voiced strong support for the IPCC this week, saying it stood for its scientists in the face of rising climate scepticism. You met with President Emmanuel Macron. How important was it for the IPCC to have this kind of backing in this context?ANSWER: “It’s really important. It was really welcome to get that level of support from the French government, from multiple people. I mean, the head of state, three senior ministers, that was a significant level of support and it gave a lot of impulse to the scientists. When I talked to the scientists afterwards, they were very pleased to have that level of support. It gave them confidence and enthusiasm about moving forward.” QUESTION: How will the IPCC ensure that its findings cut through misinformation and reach the public effectively when you have people like US President Donald Trump calling climate change a hoax?A: “We need to keep communicating the science in a very clear way. I mean, we concluded in our last report, very simple conclusion: It is unequivocal that human beings are causing the climate change that we are already seeing. And we need to keep emphasising that message and we can support it with several different types of explanation, lines of evidence.”QUESTION: The US government is absent from the IPCC and is not funding American academics participating in the process, but are you concerned that it could intervene at the approval stage to block the final report?ANSWER: “We still have a huge US presence in IPCC. We’ve got nearly 50 US authors at this meeting whose travel and subsistence is being supported by US philanthropies and who were nominated by US observer organisations. …”The approval sessions — when we finish the reports — have always been difficult sessions because we need scientists and governments to agree down to the last word and comma. And I don’t think it’s got really substantially more difficult over time to do that.”There’s only been one occasion in IPCC history where a summary for policymakers was not approved and was passed over to the next session. And this wasn’t recent, this was in 1995. So it’s always been difficult. But we’ve always overcome these hurdles.”QUESTION: France and other countries want the IPCC assessment to be published in 2028 ahead of the COP33 climate summit in India. French diplomats say Saudi Arabia and India are pushing for 2029. Is it important for the report to be published in 2028?ANSWER: “Whether or not it is published in time for the global stocktake is frankly, a matter for the governments. For the scientists here, what the question is, is the timetable compatible with the time needed to produce an assessment? And frankly, that time should not be too short or not be too long.”QUESTION: What is your message to governments and ordinary people as you begin this new cycle of work?ANSWER: “Wait with bated breath for what we are going to come out with in roughly three years down the line. There are new areas of research, there are new knowledge gaps that we need to explore, including this issue of, is it possible to limit warming to 1.5C in the long term?”

Israel awaited the return of the last hostage remains held by Palestinian militants in Gaza, as the military said on Thursday that those of a Thai national had been identified after they were handed over.Under the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, militants were due to return all 48 hostages they held captive, 20 of whom were still alive.All but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have since been handed over, though Israel has accused the Palestinian militants of dragging their feet on returning bodies.Hamas has said the process of retrieving the remains has been slow because they have been buried under the vast piles of rubble left by two years of devastating war.Israel sent a delegation on Thursday to Cairo to discuss efforts for the return of the last hostage’s remains in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.- ‘Profound sadness’ -A few people milled around Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Thursday morning, which became the focal point for weekly rallies throughout the war demanding the return of all the Gaza captives.Posters bearing the faces of Gvili and Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai national whose remains were returned on Wednesday, were propped up alongside Israeli flags and yellow ribbons that have come to symbolise Israel’s hostage ordeal.”We feel joy in our hearts that one more hostage has returned, but at the same time profound sadness that one is still left,” Orly, a pharmacist from Tel Aviv, told AFP.Mirala Gal, a volunteer at the square, said “it’s our obligation to make sure that they’re all back home”.The Israeli army said the remains of Rinthalak had been identified after they were handed over by Hamas and their allies Islamic Jihad.He was killed on October 7, 2023 during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, and his body taken to the Gaza Strip, the military said.Rinthalak was 43 years old at the time of his death and worked in agriculture. Israel officially confirmed his death in May 2024.- ‘Last to return’ -The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing those taken captive to Gaza, said the return of Rinthalak offered some long-awaited solace for his family.”Amid their grief and the knowledge that their hearts will never fully heal, Sudthisak’s return offers some comfort to a family that has endured unbearable uncertainty for over two years,” the group said in a statement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli government “shares in the deep sorrow of the Rinthalak family, the Thai people and all of fallen hostages’ families.”Foreign Minister Gideon Saar spoke to his Thai counterpart on Thursday, vowing on X that Israel would grant “assistance and benefits to his family”.The last hostage body held in Gaza is Ran Gvili, an officer in Israel’s Yasam elite police unit who was 24 at the time of Hamas’s attack that triggered the war.He fell in battle on that day and his body was taken to Gaza.”The first to leave, the last to return… We won’t stop until you come back,” his mother, Talik Gvili, wrote on X, alongside a photo of her son.Militants took 251 people hostage during the October 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 70,125 people, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the UN considers reliable.- Accusations of violations -The return of Rinthalak’s body happened while the ceasefire deal, which came into effect on October 10, remained fragile, with both sides accusing each other of violating the terms.Gaza’s civil defence agency — which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority — told AFP on Wednesday an Israeli strike in Al-Mawasi in the south of the Palestinian territory killed five people including two children.The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas militant in southern Gaza in response to a clash with Palestinian fighters in the area that wounded five soldiers.AFP footage showed dozens of distraught mourners in the southern city of Khan Yunis on Thursday gathering to bid farewell to the dead.Women sobbed over the white plastic bags containing the bodies of their loved ones.”They were sleeping civilians and children… Is this Israel’s goal? To kill Palestinians?” said Raafat Abu Hussein, who had lost relatives.”We hope the world will stand with us and end the bloodshed, so to begin the second phase of the agreement, followed by the third phase of reconstruction, so we can return to living as we did before.”The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says since the ceasefire came into effect, at least 366 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Israel’s military has reported three soldiers killed during the same period.