The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports provide policy-relevant insights about climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation through a process of peer-reviewed literature assessments underpinned by expert judgement. An iconic output from these assessments is the "burning embers" diagram. Burning embers were first used in the Third Assessment Report to visualize reasons for concern, which aggregate climate change-related impacts and risks to various systems and sectors. In these diagrams, colour transitions show changes in the assessed level of risk to humans and ecosystems as a function of climate change

This article sets out the current conceptualisation and description of risk used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It identifies limitations in capacity to reflect the dynamic nature of risk components, and the need for standardisation and refinement of methods used to quantify evolving risk patterns. Recent studies highlight the changing nature of hazards, exposure and vulnerability, the three components of risk, and demonstrate the need for coordinated guidance on strategies and methods that better reflect the dynamic nature of the components themselves, and their interaction. Here, we discuss limitations of a static risk framework and call for a way forward that will allow for a better understanding and description of risk. Such advancements in conceptualisation are needed to bring closer the understanding and description of risk in theory with how risk is quantified and communicated in practice. To stimulate discussion, this article proposes a formulation of risk that clearly recognises the temporally evolving nature of risk components.