Meeting report: "IPCC Expert Meeting on Reconciling Anthropogenic Land Use Emissions"

Session 1. Where are we?

The land emissions gap, national GHG inventories, global carbon models

Morning

08:00-12:45

08:00/08:30  Bus pick up at hotels (time depends on hotel)

08:30-9:45 Security check and welcome coffee

Plenary

9:45-12.45

Welcome

•   Director Alessandra Zampieri (JRC – Sustainable Resources Directorate)

•   Acting Deputy Director General Yvon Slingenberg (DG CLIMA, online)

•   Jim Skea (IPCC chair, online)

Background on the IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI)  - Takeshi Enoki, Mazhar Hayat, Co-Chairs of IPCC TFI

Introduction, scope and agenda of the Expert Meeting - Giacomo Grassi (IPCC TFI Bureau (TFB) and Joint Research Centre (JRC)) 

Land use in the Paris Agreement and in country reporting

Chaired by Thelma Krug (Chair of GCOS Steering Committee) 

•    Land use in the Paris Agreement and in the Global Stocktake - Dirk Nemitz (UNFCCC secretariat)

•  The managed land proxy in the IPCC Guidelines and previous IPCC meetings - Maria Sanz (IPCC TFB, Basque Centre for Climate Change) and Thelma Krug

•  Overview of current reporting in National GHG inventories - Joana Melo (JRC)

•  Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025: what's new and how can it help estimating forest emissions - Marieke Sandker (FAO)

•  Discussion

12:45-14:15 Buffet lunch and Poster session (next to buffet area)

Afternoon

14:15-17:45

Plenary

14:15-15:15

Land use emissions in the Global Carbon Budget and the IPCC AR6 – WGI

Chaired by Sonia Seneviratne (WGI Vice-Chair)

•    The Global Carbon Project and RECCAP – Glen Peters (CICERO)

•    Estimating the terrestrial global carbon budget by global models [1] [2] - Julia Pongratz (Munich University) and Mike O’Sullivan (Exeter University)

•    Discussion

15:15-15:45  Coffee break

Plenary

15:45-16:45

Land use emissions in the IPCC AR6 - WGIII

Chaired by Jan Fuglestvedt (WGIII Vice-Chair)

•    Emission scenarios with Integrated Assessment Models and links with Earth System Models - Detlef Van Vuuren (Utrecht University)

•    Land-related mitigation options - Stephanie Roe (WWF) 

•    Role of the land use sector in NDCs - Rosa Roman-Cuesta (JRC)

•    Discussion

16:45-17:45

Reconciling land use emissions between global models and national inventories

Chaired by Andy Reisinger (Australian National University)

•    Reconciliation efforts done so far [1] [2] - Giacomo Grassi (IPCC TFB, JRC) and Thomas Gasser (IIASA)

•    Impacts of different definitions of CO₂ removal for net zero and remaining carbon budget - Glen Peters (CICERO)

•    Discussion

18:00   Bus to the Restaurant in Angera (hotel Lido)

Evening

19:00  Social dinner in Angera, hotel Lido

Day 2 - 10^th July.

Session 1. Where are we?

Earth observation tools

Morning

08:00-12:30

08:00/08:30  Bus pick up at hotels (time depends on hotel)

08:30-09:45 Security check and welcome coffee

Plenary

09:45-12.30

Recap from day 1

Role of Earth Observation (EO) for estimating land use emissions

Chaired by Alessandro Cescatti (JRC)

•     Satellite remote sensing for land characterisation - Martin Herold (GFZ Potsdam)

•     Use of remote sensing to produce biomass maps: the case of Brazil – Jean Pierre Ometto (INPE)

•     Revised geospatial monitoring of 21^st century forest carbon fluxes by Global Forest Watch - Nancy Harris (World Resource Institute)

•     New tools for estimating emissions from land use - Sassan Saatchi (JPL, California Institute of Technology)

•     Combining satellite biomass and disturbances observations to project current and future carbon sink - Philippe Ciais (LSCE)

•     G3W, the WMO Global Greenhouse Gas Watch enters its Implementation and Pre-Operational Phase 2024-27: a proposed framework for enhancing collaboration – Giampaolo Balsamo (WMO)

•     Discussion: how can EO links with other communities and support the reconciliation efforts? 

•     The JRC’s Global land use carbon flux data hub - Joana Melo (JRC)

12:30-14:30 Buffet lunch and Poster session (next to buffet area)

Session 2. Where do we want to go?

Increased understanding among communities, more confidence in estimates

Afternoon

14:30 -17:30

Break-out rooms

14:30-16:00 

Three groups with a balanced representation of the various communities will discuss challenges related to emissions/removals estimates, including e.g.:

-       Attribution to anthropogenic and natural drivers/effects, spatial and temporal resolution, level of disaggregation of estimates, completeness (in terms of land uses and carbon pools); verification;

-       Challenges related to the conceptual comparability of emissions/removals across communities;

-       ‘Wish list’ of info/data that each community would like to have from others;

16:00-16:30  Coffee break

Plenary

16:30-17:30 

Each group report back to the plenary

Discussion and recap from day 2

17:45  Bus to the hotels 

Day 3 - 11^th July.

Session 3. How do we get there?

Concrete further steps towards reconciliation

Morning

08:00-12:45

08:00/08:30  Bus pick up at hotels (time depends on hotel)

08:30-9:45 Security check and welcome coffee

Break-out rooms

9:45-11:30

Three groups separating the communities (global carbon modelling, Earth Observation, GHG inventories) will discuss challenges ahead and concrete improvements that each community could realize in the next 3-4 years, to advance towards reconciliation for IPCC AR7 products and the 2^nd Global Stocktake. Examples of topics to be discussed include:

-       Global carbon models: land use maps, representation of management, consistency in the separation of anthropogenic and natural fluxes (loss of additional sink capacity), verification, etc.

-       Earth Observation: time series consistency, spatial resolution, use/accessibility of ground data, verification, masking results with managed areas, etc.

-       NGHGIs: information on managed land (including implications of reporting all land as managed or not), level of disaggregation of estimates (e.g., shifting agriculture), quality of data, interannual variability, time series consistency, completeness, verification, natural disturbances, extent to which methods capture the different drivers/effects, use of tier-3 methods, etc.

Break of 15 minutes to swap people among groups for the next BOGs

Break-out rooms

11:45-12:45

Three groups with a balanced representation of the various communities will discuss the ‘communication challenge’: how to explain the implications of any reconciliation (on remaining carbon budget, net zero, etc.), which risks of misunderstandings exist?

12:45-13:00  Group photo

13:00-14:30  Buffet lunch and Poster session (next to buffet area)

Afternoon

14:30-17:00

Plenary

14:30-16:00

Wrap-up from the two morning Breakout sessions

Discussion

16:00-16:30  Coffee break

Plenary

16:30-17:00 

Final Discussion and next steps – Greet Maenhout and Giacomo Grassi (JRC)

Conclusions - Alessandra Zampieri (JRC) and IPCC TFI co-chairs

17:15 Bus to the hotels / airports / trains