Josep "Pep" Canadell i Gili (born 1961) is a Catalan-Australian scientist specialising in climate science, ecology, and biogeochemistry. He is a Chief Research Scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Chief Lead Investigator in the Climate Systems Hub of Australia's National Environmental Science Program (NESP), and Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project. He is a fellow of major scientific societies including the American Geophysical Union, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Royal Academy of Science and Arts of Barcelona and the Institute of Catalan Studies. His research emphasises quantification of greenhouse gas budgets and pathways to climate mitigation. In 2021, Reuters ranked him the eighth most influential climate scientist in the world. Canadell has contributed as a lead author to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports and has participated in multiple assessments by the World Meteorological Organisation.
Early life and education Canadell was born in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain, in 1961. He earned a Bachelor of Science (1984), a Master of Science in Ecology (1989), and a Ph.D. in fire ecology (1995) from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. During his postgraduate period, he worked as a specialist technician with the Catalonian Department of Environment on a forest watershed biogeochemistry project. He held teaching roles at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona as Assistant Professor and later Field and Laboratory Assistant Professor while completing his masters and doctoral research.
Academic and research career
Postdoctoral research and early U.S. appointments From 1991 to 1992, Canadell worked at San Diego State University as lecturer and adjunct professor. He subsequently held a research associate post at the University of California, Berkeley (1993–1994). In 1995 he joined Stanford University, where he served as research associate and scientific officer for the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) programme of the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP). During this period, he co-authored studies on global vegetation rooting depth, describing root distributions across biomes and implications for carbon and water cycles.
Career in Australia and global carbon work Canadell relocated to Canberra and joined CSIRO, where he is a Chief Research Scientist. Since 2001, he has directed the Global Carbon Project (GCP), an international program coordinating carbon cycle research and assessment across atmospheric, land, ocean and human systems.
Major research areas His research covers:
Coordination of carbon budgets (CO2, CH4, N2O) at global, continental, and national scales Estimation of terrestrial carbon sinks and pools (e.g. forests, soils) and their vulnerability to climate variability, drought, and fire Assessment of mitigation pathways, especially land-based sequestration and methane reduction strategies recently returned to fire ecology, the subject of his PhD research and recent publications
Principal contributions
Global greenhouse-gas budgets As Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project (GCP), Canadell coordinates and supports the development and publication of global greenhouse gases (GHG), including the global budgets of carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide, the three major GHGs. This work is produced collaboratively by international research groups and aims to reduce uncertainties in global greenhouse gas estimates. The assessments, published every 1 to 3 years, quantifies global anthropogenic GHG emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change, agriculture, and tracks their redistribution among the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial ecosystems. These global GHG budgets provide reference datasets for assessing progress toward international climate targets and are used in global assessments of the IPCC and the World Meteorological Organization.
Carbon sources, sinks, and redistribution Canadell has co-authored studies that quantify the balance between anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their uptake by the planet's natural systems. His work has focused on determining how much of the CO2 released by human activities remains in the atmosphere versus being absorbed by terrestrial and oceanic sinks - a measure known as the "airborne fraction". These syntheses integrate atmospheric observations, ocean and land process models, and national emissions inventories to produce constrained global estimates of carbon fluxes. Through the Global Carbon Project, Canadell and colleagues have identified patterns in how natural carbon sinks respond to changes in climate and emissions. Their analyses have shown that while oceans and terrestrial ecosystems collectively absorb roughly half of global CO2 emissions, the efficiency of these sinks varies from year to year due to factors such as El Niño events, droughts, and wildfire activity. This research informes international assessments and long-term projections of atmospheric CO2 growth, providing evidence that natural sinks play a critical but potentially vulnerable role in moderating climate change.
Dynamics and limits of natural sinks Canadell's research has examined how the capacity of natural systems - particularly forests, soils, and oceans - to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) varies over time and under changing environmental conditions. His work, often in collaboration with international colleagues through the Global Carbon Project, has shown that these natural carbon sinks are dynamic and influenced by climate variability, land-use change, and disturbances such as drought and fire. Analyses led by Canadell show that while terrestrial and oceanic sinks currently remove about half of human CO2 emissions each year, their effectiveness is not constant. For example, warming-induced increases in wildfire frequency and severity in regions such as Australia have been associated with reduced forest carbon storage capacity. Similarly, oceanic uptake is affected by temperature-driven changes in solubility and circulation. These findings have contributed to understanding feedbacks between the carbon cycle and climate, underscoring that continued emissions could weaken natural sink efficiency and accelerate atmospheric CO2 accumulation.
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