Background:

Global environmental assessments like those carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provide critical information for users of evidence to combat climate change’s harmful impacts on human health. Still, the assessment of evidence on climate solutions often falls well short of the standards established in the health sciences, leading to unclear assessment justifications and confusion among the users of evidence. These shortcomings severely threaten progress on the Sustainable Development Agenda.

Objectives:

To highlight how existing IPCC assessment frameworks can be enhanced by drawing on experiences in the health sciences, specifically the GRADE framework, to bridge the gap between rigorous and transparent evidence synthesis and the requirements of global environmental assessments.

Developing the framework: We conducted a narrative review of existing systematic reviews on climate change mitigation and their representation in the current IPCC report. In an iterative approach, we tested and refined the framework with IPCC authors and stakeholders.

Results:

Combining structured approaches such as GRADE with existing assessment frameworks in the IPCC may help authors with streamlining the assessment process and providing a clear and traceable rationale for their assessment decision. Our proposal can offer guidance on (1) defining the specific question to be addressed, (2) summarizing the evidence in a structured way, (3) assessing and communicating certainty in accordance with IPCC principles, and (4) providing a traceable account for the evidence generation process.

Conclusions:

Learning from the extensive expertise in guideline development within the health sciences can help improve global environmental assessments. This serves as an important building block to expedite the transition from evidence to action, effectively countering the threats posed by climate change to human health and the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals.