Following the enriching session “Reconciling anthropogenic land use emissions” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Expert Meeting from 9 to 11 July 2024 in Ispra, Italy, it is evident that the utilization of Earth Observations in national inventories is highly valuable to track progress towards the targets of the Paris Agreement. 

The Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI) was well represented at this expert meeting with the participation of Carly Green (GFOI Content Manager), Maria Jose Sanz Sanchez (Chair of the MGD Advisory Group), Martin Herold (R&D Component Manager), Inge Jonckheere (ESA, Lead partner) and Sandro Federici (IPCC and MGD Advisory Group member). Many more members of the GFOI community were also in attendance. Crucial to the efforts of the GFOI, this meeting included discussion on the potential reasons for variations in estimates between global model outcomes when compared with values from aggregated national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories in support of quality policy decisions and the Global Stocktake. The origin, magnitude and implications of such variations in estimates were discussed, including the remaining global carbon budget and net zero.

This IPCC Expert Meeting achieved several key outcomes to address the aforementioned gap in anthropogenic land use CO₂. Notable progress was made towards connecting the modelling and inventory communities. Furthermore, a basis for greater collaboration was established to promote confidence in GHG estimates for the assessment of collective progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.