Call for nominations: Scoping meeting for IPCC special report on desertification

At the 43rd Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that took place from 11 to 13 April 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya, the Panel approved a decision to prepare a Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

To develop the scope and outline of this Special Report, the IPCC will hold a Scoping Meeting during the week of 13 February 2017 (venue to be confirmed). The Scoping Meeting will result in a draft Scoping Paper describing the objectives and an annotated outline of the Special Report, as well as the process and timeline for its preparation. The Panel at its 45th Session to be held in April 2017 will review the draft Scoping Paper and will make decisions around further IPCC work on this Special Report.
 
Future Earth, as an observer organization to the IPCC, is invited to nominate experts to participate in the Scoping Meeting of this Special Report. Members of the Future Earth Committees, Secretariat and leaders from global research projects and Knowledge-Action Networks are invited to propose themselves or colleagues from Future Earth’s networks for nomination by Future Earth to this meeting.

Participants in the Scoping Meeting should collectively cover the following topics, areas of expertise, climate change perspectives and regional perspectives:

Topics covered by the Report

• Desertification
• Other aspects of land degradation
• Sustainable land management
• Food security
• Greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems

Areas of expertise as applied to the topics covered by the Report

• Agricultural systems
• Agroclimatology and agrometeorology
• Biomass for energy generation and fuels
• Carbon cycle and other biogeochemical cycles
• Climate observations and projections
• Demand-side management
• Detection and attribution
• Eremology
• Food systems
• Land economy
• Land-atmosphere interactions and biogeophysics
• Monitoring and reporting of information relating to AFOLU inventories
• Nutrition and nutrition-related health, food quality and access
• Plant and animal physiology
• Rangeland management
• Rural development and livelihoods
• Soil science
• Sustainable consumption
• Urban and forestry aspects of sustainable land management
• Water and biodiversity in relation to land-uses within the scope of the report

Climate change perspectives

• Contribution to climate change drivers
• Climate change impacts
• Climate change adaptation options
• Climate change mitigation options
• Adaptation and mitigation interactions

Regional expertise

• WMO Region I: Africa
• WMO Region II: Asia
• WMO Region III: South America
• WMO Region IV: North America, Central America and the Caribbean
• WMO Region V: South-West Pacific
• WMO Region VI: Europe 

Please note that nominations should include as many topics, climate change perspectives and regional perspectives as are relevant. However, the number of areas of expertise for each nominee is restricted to five, and we ask that these are ranked (1 = area of greatest expertise, 5 = least). This will help with the selection process. Areas of expertise should be identified only if a nominee’s expertise applies specifically to the topics covered by the Special Report. General expertise or expertise in an area outside the scope of the report should not be included.
 
While the final outline for the Special Report may not include all areas listed above, broad expertise is solicited in order to determine robust areas for consideration. In selecting meeting participants, consideration will be given to the following criteria: scientific, technical and socio-economic expertise, including a range of views; geographical representation; a mixture of experts with and without previous experience in IPCC; gender balance; and background from relevant stakeholder and user groups, including governments. The number of nominations is likely to exceed the number of places available. While every effort will be made to maintain balance, IPCC cannot guarantee to offer a place to every nominee.

Please also note that the work of the Scoping Meeting will be conducted only in English.

For each individual application, please fill in the nomination form available here. Please complete all information requested (mandatory fields marked by a * in the three Boxes: “Person Nominated,” “Education Background and Expertise” and “Employment and Professional Profile of Person Nominated”). Please send the nomination form with a summary CV (maximum four pages) in English and in pdf format no later than Thursday, 29 September 2016 (6pm CEST) to: claire.weill@futureearth.org and claire.weill@inra.fr.

All relevant and complete applications will then be sent to IPCC. An invitation letter to the Scoping Meeting will be sent to the selected nominees in December 2016.

Please note that Future Earth will not provide financial support to nominees. Please also note that you can also be nominated by your country. To do so, you will have to contact the IPCC focal point of your country.