The Integrated Regional Observation Carbon-Climate Constraints Workshop

South African scientists in the ocean, terrestrial and atmospheric carbon observation fields will gather for a seminal workshop on 16 May 2023. The workshop, the first combined meeting of these scientists in South Africa, is themed the Integrated Regional Observation Carbon-Climate Constraints.

The objective of the workshop is to identify the interventions required to improve the observation of greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

The workshop will take place at the National Research Foundation (NRF) offices in Brummeria, Pretoria. The convenors are the Expanded Freshwater and Terrestrial Environmental Observation Network (EFTEON), a research centre under the South African Environmental Observation Network (NRF-SAEON), and Stellenbosch University’s (SU) School for Climate Studies (SCS). Participating scientists are drawn from institutions such as the NRF and its facilities NRF-SAEON/EFTEON, universities, the Department of Forestry Fisheries and Environment, the SA Weather Services and the DSI-CSIR Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observatory (SOCCO).

“The main aim of this workshop is to bring together the carbon observing and policy communities in South Africa to identify the needs, priorities and action plans required to build and sustain an integrated regional observational constraint for carbon in support of the climate-biodiversity science-policy nexus,” says Dr Gregor Feig, EFTEON manager.

“The evaluation of the effectiveness of regional and global emission reductions (net-zero) and negative emissions (carbon dioxide removal) as well as the model projections rely critically on the confidence level of the observational constraints. This is a major gap in the Southern African region,” says Prof. Pedro Monteiro from SU’s School for Climate Studies (SCS).

High confidence constraints are necessary to increase confidence in model projections as well as to develop effectiveness metrics and to support national and international mitigation policy aims such as mitigation, adaptation and global stocktake as well as in business through carbon pricing. The South African land, ocean and atmospheric carbon observing communities have the skills and infrastructure at the domain level.

“Now, this needs to be scaled up into a high impact set of public integrated regional carbon concentration, carbon flux and inventory products that build towards a greater understanding of the changing carbon-climate-water nexus and its impact on all aspects of a just transition,” Monteiro and Feig add.

Members of the media are invited to cover sessions of the workshop. Interviews with experts will also be facilitated. Please contact Bongani Nkosi, NRF Media Relations Officer, on b.nkosi@nrf.ac.za or +27 61 477 3064.