Long-time contributor to the IPCC, agronomist Jean-François Soussana appointed president of the High Council for the Climate

This specialist in soil health and climate change has participated in IPCC reports for more than twenty years. Agronomist Jean-François Soussana takes the head of the High Council for the Climate (HCC), the independent body responsible for evaluating France’s climate action, according to a decree published Thursday June 20 in the Official Journal. This vice-president of the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) succeeds the Franco-Canadian climatologist Corinne Le Quéré, on the occasion of the first renewal of this council of 12 experts installed in 2018 by Emmanuel Macron and whose first term expires on June 24.

Aged 65, this doctor in plant physiology has carried out work since the 1980s on the ecology of grasslands and the carbon and nitrogen cycles affected by climate change. He then “directed a research laboratory on ecosystems and global changes” within INRA, which became INRAE ​​in 2020. On this date, he became vice-president of this prestigious research institute, responsible for international programs, in particular on agriculture, soils and climate change, depending on the sites of the HCC and INRAE. Jean-François Soussana is also one of the 15 experts who since 2022 have made up the European Scientific Advisory Council, the equivalent of the HCC at the European Union level.

The HCC also welcomes four new members, according to the decree published Thursday: the general inspector of finances Selma Mahfouz, co-author with the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry of a reference report on the financing of the ecological transition, the ecology professor Paul Leadley and coastal erosion specialist Gonéri Le Cozannet, who were both authors of the IPCC, and the director in France of the NGO Transport & Environment, Diane Strauss. Eight members, including climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici and the architect of the Paris agreement Laurence Tubiana, are reappointed to this French climate group, placed under the Prime Minister.