The natural and anthropogenic climate drivers that impact Earth’s radiation balance, influencing climate states and forcing climate change are termed climate forcing agents. Globally representative forcing estimates are needed to drive Earth system models to simulate past and project future climate states. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Forcing Task Team aims to identify, develop, document, and deliver forcings for next-generation models participating in the seventh phase of CMIP (CMIP7). This next phase is likely to be a core contribution to the IPCC seventh assessment cycle (AR7). The special issue comprises papers documenting forcing data development and evaluation, along with those describing CMIP7 forcing characteristics (in contrast to previous versions). It also includes papers that quantify and assess uncertainties in the spatial and temporal forcing distributions and the influence of forcing on the evolution of climate states across Earth system model configurations.