Dr Katharine Vincent has just left for Tsukuba, Japan, where she will participate in the first Lead Authors Meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group Two for the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.  Katharine is a lead author on chapter 9 (rural areas).  This will be the second time she has contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: in the Fourth Assessment Report she was a contributing author to chapter 9 (Africa) and chapter 17 (Adaptation) of Working Group Two.