SLAM-B is PEPR FairCarboN's targeted project no. 2. But what is FairCarboN?
FairCarboN 2022-2028: "Carbon in continental ecosystems: levers and trajectories for carbon neutrality".
An exploratory national research and priority equipment program (PEPR) to develop the contribution of continental ecosystems to climate change mitigation and carbon neutrality.
Co-directors: Sylvie Recous (INRAE), Pierre Barré (CNRS)
https://www.pepr-faircarbon.fr/
FairCarboN, a necessary program in the current environmental, social and political context
Achieving carbon neutrality is essential if we are to meet the Paris Agreement's objective of limiting temperature increases to well below +2°C by 2050. Terrestrial ecosystems play a central role in this, contributing both to reducing emissions and to storing carbon to offset incompressible emissions. This contribution must be achieved by preserving natural ecosystems and ensuring the sustainability of managed and semi-natural ecosystems, in order to maintain or increase their capacity to provide other ecosystem services. This requires significant multidisciplinary advances in our understanding of carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems, the quantification of stocks and flows, and its inter-relationships with other biogeochemical cycles, including that of water. This new knowledge should make it possible to accurately determine the contribution of continental ecosystems to climate change mitigation.
Three objectives to support trajectories towards carbon neutrality
FairCarboN's ambition is to provide a quantified assessment at different spatiotemporal scales of the contribution of continental ecosystems (natural ecosystems, forests, agroecosystems, freshwater and coastal ecosystems, urban and peri-urban ecosystems) to the evolution of carbon flows, in the context of global change. FairCarboN will propose possible trajectories for territorial management, capable of informing public policies and the decisions of various stakeholders. It will capitalize on the resources and facilities of French research teams in mainland France, the French overseas territories and abroad, particularly in developing countries.
- Objective 1: remove the barriers to knowledge about the key processes governing the carbon cycle and their responses to global change; identify the ecological, agronomic and socio-economic levers to be activated to implement the transition to carbon neutrality.
- Objective 2: make available a new generation of numerical models validated via open data sets, enabling the simulation of changes in carbon stocks and fluxes in soils, fresh waters, coastal zones and vegetation at different spatio-temporal scales.
- Objective 3: to develop, test and evaluate, in consultation with various stakeholders (agricultural and forestry players, industrialists, environmental agencies, civil society, NGOs, public policy-makers, etc.) scenarios for changing land use and occupation and natural resource management practices in territories that meet the challenges of carbon neutrality, and to support their implementation at local, regional and national levels.
Program terms, mechanisms and tools
With a budget of 40 million euros, FairCarboN will fund innovative, structuring research over a 6-year period, capitalizing on the dynamics and strengths of French research teams to consolidate French leadership in the field of carbon in continental ecosystems. Its actions will also strengthen interdisciplinary, multi-milieu and multi-actor dialogues, thanks to various tools:
- A call for projects open to the whole community, aimed at making significant progress in our understanding of the key processes governing the carbon cycle (couplings with other cycles, plant production and biomass recycling, lateral and longitudinal flows, storage and emissions, greenhouse gas balance, development and assessment of public policies, etc.). During the project construction phase, the scientific community will be encouraged to form the large, multi-disciplinary consortia needed to understand these complex systems.
- A targeted project to create an unprecedented database on changes in carbon stocks in soils and plant biomasses, capitalizing on French research facilities (Réseau de mesures de la qualité des sols (RMQS), Réseau national de suivi à long terme des écosystèmes forestiers (RENECOFOR), Integrated carbon observation system (ICOS-France) and long-term agronomic "system" experiments). The use of this database by the modeling community, stimulated within the framework of the program, will enable the emergence of a new generation of models simulating carbon evolution in continental ecosystems with greater precision.
- A targeted project to develop a multi-agent modeling platform for integrated assessment of territorial bioeconomy systems. This platform will be a key tool for facilitating scenario labs bringing together scientists and stakeholders in 5 pilot territories covering the various challenges of the bioeconomy, in mainland France, the French overseas territories and developing countries.
- Targeted support for existing research facilities and infrastructures, to increase the density and harmonize the monitoring of continental ecosystems with top-quality tools.
- Education through research (thematic schools, development of teaching modules and online resources, etc.) and international exchanges to train the new generation of researchers, engineers and technicians mobilized on the path to carbon neutrality.
Targeted impacts
FairCarboN will have direct, tangible and significant impacts in many areas:
- Scientific: upgrading of research infrastructures, creation of open and shared databases and models, increase in the number of international scientific publications, international reconinternational recognition.
- Environmental: solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon storage while preserving the sustainability of ecosystems.
- Socio-economic: co-construction of trajectories with stakeholders and support for regions towards carbon neutrality, setting up indicators and decision-making tools to help stakeholders contribute to the transition to carbon neutrality.
- Policies: provision of the main results of the program in the form of summary notes and indicators for use by policy-makers, contributing to the development and assessment of public policies.
International governance
INRAE and CNRS are co-piloting FairCarboN, and are associating partner research organizations and universities with complementary and recognized skills, who will be members of the strategic committee. The co-directors will lead the program with the help of an operational team of 14 scientists covering FairCarboN's main thematic fields. This team will benefit from the input of the International Scientific Committee and the Stakeholder Committee. These committees also help to coordinate the program with ongoing initiatives at international level, and to mobilize all stakeholders around FairCarboN.
Partners
CEA, CIRAD, IRD, Université Aix-Marseille, Université de Montpellier, Université Paris-Saclay
