Giacomo Grassi among the new members of the IPCC Bureau of the Task Force on greenhouse gas inventories (TFI).

His experience and expertise will help improve the IPCC’s working methods and emission estimates. More specifically, Giacomo Grassi will work on updating and promoting methodologies, with particular attention to developing countries.
 
The elections of the IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were held at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya from 25 to 28 July and marked the end of the sixth IPCC evaluation cycle and the beginning of the seventh.
During the 59th session, which saw 600 participants from 170 governments, the new IPCC Bureau was elected, made up of 34 members, including the new President Jim Skea (UK) and three Vice-Presidents Ladislaus Chang’a (United Republic of Tanzania), Diana Ürge-Vorsatz (Hungary), Ramón Pichs-Madruga (Cuba).
The Italian Giacomo Grassi, Scientific officer at the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, has been elected among the 12 new members of the IPCC Bureau of the Task Force on greenhouse gas inventories (TFI).
Each country adhering to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) must periodically prepare estimates of the emissions and removals of greenhouse gases that occur in its territory. The TFI Bureau coordinates the development and dissemination of the methodologies needed to make these estimates, according to criteria approved by the international scientific community. This work is essential because these estimates are then used by countries to report whether or not they have met national climate targets under the Paris Agreement.
“As a new member of the TFI Bureau, I will help update and further promote these methodologies, with a particular focus on their dissemination in developing countries,” said Grassi. “I will rely on the experience gained at the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, where I work and for which I coordinated the estimates for the ‘Land and forest use’ (LULUCF) sector of the inventory of greenhouse gases of the European Union.”
The elections of the members of the Bureau are very important moments in the work of the IPCC. “For the election of the TFI Bureau there was excellent collaboration between the European Commission, MISE and CMCC,” said Grassi. “Global climate policy is moving rapidly from emission reduction commitments made by countries in the UNFCCC negotiations to concrete implementation. As a result, attention to greenhouse gas estimates of national inventories is growing.”
According to Grassi, one of the main challenges along this path is the very complex and uncertain estimates of the LULUCF sector. In particular, the global models used by the IPCC assessment reports use different anthropogenic contribution estimation approaches than the national inventories. “As a member of the TFI Bureau, I will propose reconciling the methods used by global models with those applied by national inventories,” Grassi said, “through increased liaison between the IPCC Bureau (which coordinates the work of Working Groups 1-3 and the related assessment reports) and the TFI Bureau. This work will be instrumental in increasing the quality and consistency of IPCC outputs, confidence in country estimates, and independent assessment of where we are in relation to the goals of the Paris Agreements. As an effective English motto says, ‘if we don’t measure (or if we don’t trust our measure), we don’t manage’”.