The EU creates its own advisory council on climate change

The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change is composed of 15 specialists, including two From Spain. Its task will be to provide independent scientific advice and to produce reports on EU measures and their objectives.

On Thursday, the people who will form the new European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change have been appointed. A total of 15 specialists – 10 men and 5 women – will guide the European Union to achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. The creation of this advisory body is included in the European Climate Law, the standard adopted in June 2021 that marks the EU’s climate policy.

The task of this body will be to provide the European Union with “the scientific knowledge, experience and advice related to climate change”. Based on ‘independent scientific advice’, they will need to ‘produce reports on EU measures, climate targets and indicative greenhouse gas budgets and their consistency with the European Climate Law and the EU’s international commitments under the Paris Agreement’.

This Advisory Board will use as a basis “the best and most recent scientific evidence available”, referring to the latest reports of the IPCC – including the one that will be published on April 4 on mitigation – of the IPBES and other national and international organizations. The work carried out by the specialist group will be ‘transparent’, and the reports they produce will be made available to the public.

For now, the first task of the group will be to appoint its chair and define its programme of work. To this end, it will be supported by a secretariat hosted by the European Environment Agency. It was precisely this body that was in charge of choosing the experts through an Evaluation Committee. Those chosen have been appointed in their personal capacity for a period of four years with the option of renewal only once.

The group of specialists has among its ranks two Spaniards. One is Laura Díaz Anadón, PhD in Chemical Engineering, professor at several international universities and author of the IPCC in the report that will be released in the coming weeks. The other is Elena López-Gunn, PhD in Geography, founder and director of ICATALIST, and author of the IPCC in the report published last February. The other people chosen are Martín van Aalst (Netherlands), Jette Bredahl Jacobsen (Denmark), Constantinos Cartalís (Greece), Suraje Desai (Portugal), Ottmar Edenhofer (Germany), Vera Eory (Hungary-United Kingdom), Edgar Hertwich (Austria), Lena Kitzing (Denmark-Germany), Lars J. Nilsson (Sweden), Keywan Riahi (Austria), Joeri Rogelj (Belgium), Nicolaas Schrijver (Netherlands) and Jean-Francois Soussana (France).

Source: Climate