Pep received his BSc degree and PhD degrees on terrestrial ecology from the University Autonomous of Barcelona in 1988 and 1995, respectively. He took post-doctoral positions at the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University.

He was the executive officer for the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) during 1995 to 2000, and the director of the Impact Center in Bogor, Indonesia. Since 2001 he is the executive director of the Global Carbon Project and research scientist in CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.

Pep is author of more than 60 papers in international scientific journals, editor of 7 special journal issues, and editor of 4 peer-reviewed books, including the first Global Environmental Change Encyclopaedia published in 2002. He was also a member of the IPCC Fourth Assessment that received the Noble Price in 2007.

His research interest includes i) the global and regional carbon budgets, ii) processes on land, oceans, and energy systems responsible for the net carbon balance, including natural and human drivers, iii) vulnerabilities of the carbon-climate-human system including permafrost, peatlands, tropical forests, forest decline (drought, fires), methane hydrates, and iv) mitigation options particularly land-based such as forestry and agriculture.

Abstract:   Global Carbon Trends

The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the single largest human perturbation on the earth’s radiative balance contributing to climate change. Its rate of change reflects the balance between anthropogenic carbon emissions and the dynamics of a number of terrestrial and ocean processes that remove or emit CO2. It is the long term evolution of this balance that will determine to large extent the speed and magnitude of the human induced climate change and the mitigation requirements to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations at any given level. In this talk, I’ll show new trends in global carbon sources and sinks, with particularly focus on major shifts occurring since 2000 when the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 has reached its highest level on record. The acceleration in the CO2 growth results from the combination of several changes in properties of the carbon cycle, including: i) acceleration of anthropogenic carbon emissions, ii) increased carbon intensity of the global economy, and iii) decreased efficiency of natural carbon sinks. I’ll discuss in more detail some of the likely causes of the reduced efficiency of natural carbon sinks. All these changes characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger than expected climate forcing, and sooner than expected.

Dr Martin Manning has recently returned to New Zealand to take up the position of Professor and Research Fellow, Climate Change, at Victoria University of Wellington.  For the last five years he was Director of the Working Group I Support Unit for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and one of the lead authors of the recent IPCC assessment of the science of climate change.
Prior to working in the USA, Dr Manning was a research programme manager in New Zealand, where he lead research on greenhouse gases, atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, and the global carbon cycle at the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research.

Abstract: The carbon cycle: An emerging nexus between science and policy


While it is important to recognize that CO2 is not the only significant greenhouse gas, the nature of its emissions and removals to/from the atmosphere is more complex than for other gases. This complexity is apparent from both science and policy perspectives and there is a strong common interest in making further progress on both fronts.

Ironically, while changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations are one of the best determined factors in anthropogenic climate change, the drivers for these changes are some of the least well understood. Uncertainty in carbon cycle processes at a global scale, and how these may evolve under climate change, has become one of the main uncertainties in projections of climate change. Our ability to validate carbon cycle models against observations remains limited due to difficulties in determining change in the terrestrial biosphere, much of which occurs as a result of poorly documented human actions in the past. Thus while fossil fuel emissions are tracking close to the upper end of the range of scenarios envisaged in the late 1990s, the situation for land-use change emissions remains uncertain.

From a policy perspective, the pervasive way in which CO2 emissions arise in our industrialised society creates major challenges for emission reductions. The very different nature of industrial and land-use change emissions, the difficulty of monitoring the latter, and their different dependence on historical actions has also led to a complex policy framework that attempts to balance many interests. This has not been helped by misunderstandings across the science-policy interface that in some cases have taken many years to address.

Improving understanding of the carbon cycle clearly has advantages for policy and science. Some progress is being made in the expansion of monitoring and research efforts to target specific policy relevant science questions, but the reluctance of funding agencies to support monitoring remains a real constraint. Scientists need to do more to acknowledge and explain the limits of their present understanding. Policy makers likewise need to acknowledge that management of CO2 emissions and removals will have to proceed in the face of large uncertainties in some respects. Both communities should work together more closely to identify pragmatic near-term objectives that would improve policy frameworks and advance scientific understanding.