The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. It has now produced six increasingly long and detailed assessments of the state of climate science as well as many special reports on associated subjects. Contrary to popular belief the IPCC is not a scientific organization; it is an administrative entity consisting of delegates from governments of 195 member states. The panel organizes periodic plenary meetings to oversee the work of the IPCC bureau, a 30-member agency headquartered in Geneva that directs the working groups. They, in turn, manage the process of producing assessment reports on scientific and socioeconomic topics related to climate change according to procedures developed by the IPCC. The IPCC itself was created not by scientists but by politicians. While its operating principles declare that its reports should be “neutral with respect to policy,” in practice its conclusions must be approved by the sponsoring government delegates, and the drift towards policy advocacy has become steadily more pronounced over time.