The latest science on climate change? Here is what the Joint Research Centre is doing at COP26

At COP26 this year, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre is co/-organising no fewer than eleven side events, as well as launching new tools and presenting several reports covering a wide range of climate-related activities.

Side events with JRC during COP26

• The Joint Research Centre (JRC) will present a new tool, the Composite Indicators & Scoreboards Explorer, that aggregates existing scoreboards and indicators on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including climate actions and other environment goals, in the standalone event “Too much data: How can the composite indicators and scoreboards explorer help you?” The tool will help policymakers, researchers, journalists and stakeholders to improve the way they track progress on SDGs in countries around the world.
• At the event “Climate Adaptation enabled through the Copernicus Services and international cooperate,” the JRC will show how the Copernicus Emergency Management Service provides on-demand details from climate change-induced natural disasters around the world.
• JRC scientists will demonstrate how solar photovoltaics could become our major global energy source and argue for stronger representation of the technology in climate and energy models, at “The role of Photovoltaics for the Global Energy Transition – Requirements and a spotlight on Africa”.
• The JRC will raise awareness on the increasing potential of Earth Observation (EO) for addressing climate change mitigation, and present the Global Human Settlement Layer, a tool-set designed to assess human presence on the planet. EO provides a global, objective and transparent evidence base on which to develop, implement and assess mitigation policies, and will be discussed in the “EO for Climate Action: Mitigation, REDD+, and the Global Stocktake” event.
• Key findings of the upcoming 2021 Global Energy and Climate Outlook (GECO) will be showcased at “Connecting the dots: From ambition raising to mission zero”. This side event will provide an up-to-date assessment on global climate policy commitments, debate how the world can get closer to the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement, and set out which important steps still need to be taken.
• JRC scientists will debate the role and potential impact of financing, with a special focus on green bonds and macroeconomic policy in developing economies at the event “Building blocks for transformative climate action”.
• The latest estimates of sectorial greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints will be presented at “Options for climate-neutral transition towards sustainable food systems and forest management”, building on the two global databases, EDGAR-FOOD and EDGAR-LULUCF, and addressing potential effects of reducing food waste and changing diets via a global simulation model, MAGNET (latest article).
• A new JRC paper in Nature climate change will be presented during the “Land for climate and biodiversity: scientific challenges and highlights from EU-China cooperation” event. The paper advocates like-with-like comparisons between global models and national GHG inventories for accurate progress assessments.
• JRC will also organise a standalone event with international experts to present the global dimension of the New European Bauhaus for the first time. The discussion will reflect on how citizens and communities around the world can get involved, exchange ideas and cooperate, in the side event called “New European Bauhaus: a global dimension”.
• The JRC will contribute to bring fairness to the core of climate policy discussions in the event “Just Transition: Putting People & Fairness at the Heart of the Transition to Climate Neutrality”. Specifically we will raise awareness on the need to introduce tailored instruments to protect the most vulnerable households against temporary energy poverty during the green energy transition.
• The side event “How education can support transition towards a climate neutral society” will bring together members of the education community and those involved in climate projects. Here, the European Commission will present the EU approach on Education for Environmental Sustainability which includes the set-up of an Education for Climate Coalition to be launched on the first Education for Climate Day, 25 November.
• Finally, our scientists will reveal the main findings of a new JRC Science for Policy report on climate-induced displacement in Africa, published in conjunction with the COP26 session. This will happen during the side event “Climate impacts as drivers of displacement: science, human rights and policy response” and the JRC presentation will shed light on the connection between climate change and net migration, as well as the importance of local adaptation measures.

Register on Cop26 side event website to watch all JRC side events and more.

Recent JRC reports and tools linked to climate action

• Several JRC scientists contributed to the recent Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As lead authors, they provided and coordinated the assessments on drivers of climate changes, the construction of regional climate information and contributed to several other chapters.
• The upcoming 2021 Global Energy and Climate Outlook takes stock of updates in nationally determined contributions and, for the first time, assesses how recently announced long-term strategies by major world economies – which include certain net-zero emission targets – will affect the global effort for the low-carbon transition. GECO is a vital instrument for policy and decision makers to help them finding the way towards climate neutrality.
• An independent estimate of greenhouse gas emissions for each country in the world is provided in the recently published the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) report. The estimates are based on robust and consistent methodology stemming from the latest IPCC guidelines and most recent activity data. EDGAR is complementary to national inventories reported by EU Member States.
• The JRC conducts research on Natural Capital Accounting, proposing ways to systematically track the interaction between the economic context and natural resources to support a better management of the EU’s natural capital. In a special issue of Ecosystem Services, the JRC and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) presented some lessons learned.
• The JRC developed the first web-based tool - eConservation - mapping biodiversity conservation funding coming from the EU and other international donors. The tool can monitor effective spending of funds and will help decision makers identify where the needs are and assess the impact of their actions over time.
• A series of reports published by the JRC contributed to shaping the recent Fit for 55 package proposed by the European Commission, like residential building energy renovation, an assessment of heating and cooling, and a report on alternative to fuel transport. The JRC also launched an online tool to compare energy consumption and sources scenarios.
• Evidence to help inform the design of the European Green Bond Standard was recently put forward by a JRC financial analysis, a new standard that would enhance the effectiveness, transparency, comparability and credibility of the green bond market.
• The economic costs of heatwaves and a better resilience on drought were also recently analysed by scientists of the JRC.
• The JRC recently proposed as well a method for improving the assessment of collective progress towards the Paris Agreement’s goal.
• Moreover, the Joint Research Centre is committed to the “Sevilla process”, a proven participatory, transparent, consensus-based approach to develop and establish environmental criteria and standards in EU policies and legislation, on the basis of sound scientific and techno-economic information, data, and evidence involving all types of stakeholders. It has been developed and implemented by JRC over 20 years and covers a number of environmental policy fields, thus having the potential to be a cornerstone in supporting the green transition.

To read all the news on science on climate change, please visit the related sections on the JRC Science Hub.

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European Union side events