defining 'severe' risks for each particular RKR. They also assess the conditions in terms of warming , exposure/vulnerability and adaptation under which the RKR would become severe. For each of these dimensions, RKR teams considered generic levels ranging from High to Medium and Low. For warming levels, in line with WGI framing, High refers to climate outcomes consistent with RCP8.5 or higher, Low refers to climate outcomes consistent with RCP2.6 or lower, and Medium refers to outcomes for scenarios between RCPs 2.6 and 8.5. For reference, the full range of warming levels  associated with RCP8.5 for the 2081-2100 period is 3.0-6.2°C; for RCP2.6 it is 0.9-2.3°C; and for intermediate RCPs it is 1.8-3.6℃ . For Exposure-Vulnerability, levels are determined by the RKR teams relative to the range of future conditions considered in the literature, for example based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways  in which future conditions based on SSPs 1 or 5 represent Low exposure or vulnerability and those based on SSPs 3 or 4 represent High exposure or vulnerability . For Adaptation, two main levels have been considered: High refers to near maximum potential, and Low refers to the continuation of today's trends. Despite being intertwined in reality, Exposure-Vulnerability and Adaptation conditions are distinguished to help understand their respective contributions to risk severity. Importantly, this assessment does not consider all risks, but only those that can be considered severe given the definition and criteria presented in Section 16.5.1. The assessment does not exclude the possibility that severe risks are already observed in some contexts, and considers projected risks through the end of this century.
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report