A very successful CHE final review on 26 January and a very productive CoCO2 kick-off meeting on 27/28 January marked the beginning of 2021 in an important European CO2 week. The CHE project, coordinated by Gianpaolo Balsamo (ECMWF), ran from October 2017 to December 2020, and successfully delivered all anticipated outputs in good state and on time. All CHE deliverable reports are now online. Its follow-on is CoCO2, coordinated by Richard Engelen (ECMWF), which started in January 2021 and will continue until December 2023. Both projects support the development of the CO2 emission monitoring prototype that will be implemented as an important new Copernicus Service element.

CHE and CoCO2 are both coordinated by ECMWF and consisting of large European consortia, as well as getting support from external non-European experts. Professor Stephen Briggs, CHE and CoCO2 Project reviewer, said: "The CHE research was world-class and the consortium managed to make sizeable advances for the CO2 emission Monitoring and Verification Support capacity. It therefore forms a fantastic starting point for the CoCO2 project."

The CoCO2 kick-off meeting attracted around 100 participants from all over Europe. After an initial plenary session, several breakout sessions focused on the planned work in the various work packages with very constructive discussions. Feedback at the end from the European Commission and the two reviewers was again very positive emphasizing their confidence in the Consortium to take on the scientific and technical challenges ahead.

Both CHE and CoCO2 are critical to bring together the European greenhouse gas science community to support the development of this important new CAMS service element, which will support the European Green Deal and the Paris Agreement.