The general assembly 2021 of the H2020 project took place digitally 15-17 September with 80-90 participants from Europe, Australia, India, Japan, South Africa, US west coast and Hawaii in parallel. The plenary agenda included a suite of science highlights from all work packages, which included presentations from early career scientists, but also a region-oriented session, a poster session, a stakeholder group exchange session as well as a discussion with the international advisory board, and recommendations from our EU adviser. One of the highlights of the meeting was a fantastic presentation from Colin Jones (UK MetOffice) entitled “An overview of CMIP6: Robustness of results across the multi-model, multi-MIP ensemble“. We are pleased that the project is still on track despite the challenging situation in the ongoing crisis thanks to highly motivated scientists within the consortium. We also hope for an in-person meeting in 2022!