NERC GW4+ DTP PhD Studentship: Land-based climate mitigation, combining multi-data sources to assess potential contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement

Anthropogenic activities in the land sector, such as deforestation, contribute around 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions, while approximately 30% of human emissions are taken up and stored in terrestrial systems, and thus act to mitigate climate change1. Under the Paris Agreement, 196 countries pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with 25% of mitigation across Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) coming from land activity2. Uncertainties in land use (LU) flux estimates are on the order of ±50%, with serious implications for assessing effectiveness of climate mitigation goals.

There are also large differences between country reporting of LU fluxes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and what is estimated by the international science community (a source of 0.5 versus 4GtCO2e/yr)1,2. Differences are due to methodological approaches, definitions and data sources2,3. Reconciling estimates and reducing uncertainty is key to the effectiveness of mitigation activity under the Paris Agreement2. It can contribute to methodological improvements for estimating global emissions and mitigation pathways, and mitigation potential for countries’ future NDCs.

This PhD will compare and reconcile different LU flux estimates, quantifying component fluxes, including gross and net emissions from deforestation and forest management, legacy fluxes from past LU, and the relative attribution of land fluxes to anthropogenic LU versus impacts of environmental change. Data sources will include estimates based on vegetation models, bookkeeping models, satellite data, and country reporting under UNFCCC. This project will benefit from access to results from an international multi-model synthesis activity under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project1, co-ordinated by the supervision team. Results will feedback into methodological development, working with modelling teams, In particular the UK JULES ecosystem model.

Tropical South America and South East Asia are selected as two case study regions as these regions together account for over 60% of the contemporary emissions associated with LU. These are areas that have been data poor in the past but where increasing amounts of inventory and satellite data are becoming available. This studentship will include an internship at INPE in Brazil working direct with data providers and remote sensing experts. Co-benefits of forest mitigation (biodiversity, flood and landslide resilience) will be explored working with experts and data from Cardiff University’s field site in Borneo. Outputs will provide evidence of relevance to country NDC development.

The student will work with CASE partner UK Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy to embed understanding of, and co-produce information of relevance to, the UNFCCC policy process.