Josep G. Canadell

Area of research

Global and Planetary Change · Atmospheric Science

Research interest

Pep is a Chief Research Scientist in CSIRO Environment, Chief Lead Investigator in the Climate Systems Hub of the National Environmental Science Program, and the Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project, a global consortium of scientists under the umbrella of Future Earth and a scientific partner of the World Climate Research Programme. Pep holds a BSc, a MSc, and a PhD degree in Biology and Terrestrial Ecology from the University Autonomous of Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain). Upon completing his PhD and throughout the 1990s, Pep held three research positions in the USA at San Diego State University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Stanford University. He then moved to CSIRO in Australia, where he has been working since. Pep focuses on collaborative and highly integrative research to develop national, continental, and global budgets and trend analyses of the main greenhouse gases. He also studies the size and vulnerability of Earth’s carbon sinks and pools, carbon-climate feedbacks, and pathways to net-zero emissions, including land-based carbon sequestration and negative emissions. He has also focused on abrupt impacts and ecosystem collapse resulting from climate change, particularly due to wildfires. He draws on a robust understanding of regional and global biogeochemical cycles to inform the formulation of sub-national, national, and international policies and actions to mitigate climate change. Pep has contributed to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the last 20 years and has participated in multiple assessments by the World Meteorological Organization. Pep is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and the American Geophysical Union. Reuters named him the 8th most influential climate scientist in the world in 2021. Pep has co-authored over 300 peer-reviewed research papers (with 80 papers in the journals of Nature/s and Science). He