The Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

• Considers climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability
• Provides a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the current state of knowledge and level of certainty, based on the available scientific, technical, and socio-economic literature
• Highlights both big-picture messages and key details, to integrate knowledge from diverse disciplines, to evaluate the strength of evidence underlying findings, and to identify topics where understanding is incomplete
• Focuses on providing information to support good decisions by stakeholders at all levels
• Provides a unique source of background for decision support, while scrupulously avoiding advocacy for particular policy options