Agriculture and the UNFCCC

Agriculture and the climate change negotiations

Issue paper 4:
Why and How to Include Agriculture in a Post-2012 Agreement, Platform 2009

English (112KB PDF)

This web page is not the formal position of any one member or government, but forwards Platform members’ agreed rationale for the inclusion of agriculture into COP15 climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. It sets out to tackle the following questions:

Why include agriculture in climate change negotiations?

A key challenge facing the world today is how to double food production to feed 9 billion people by 2050, achieve poverty reduction through agricultural growth, while minimising greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and adapting agriculture to a warmer world with more extremes of weather. To do this we need major investments in agricultural adaptation and mitigation, and greater understanding of the impacts of climate change on agriculture.¹

Major adverse impacts on food production and consequently food security and stability in the developing world are expected due to changes in temperatures and rainfall as well as increased frequency of droughts and floods. The poorest of the poor will be the hardest hit, putting an estimated 600 million more people at risk of hunger by 2080. Decreases in crop yields due to loss of agricultural land and competition for resources have the potential to cause large scale migration and conflict.

Agriculture is both part of the challenge and the solution. Agriculture itself accounts for about 14% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Deforestation of lands for agricultural use account for an additional 17% of global emissions. In total, 74% of total agricultural emissions come from developing countries. Sound mitigation measures could reduce annual agricultural emissions by up to 88%, with 70% of this coming from developing countries.

Effective agricultural adaptation and mitigation offer the prospects of reducing GHG emissions while providing food and livelihoods for the poor. Agriculture needs to be part of any new mitigation mechanisms under post-Kyoto agreements so that developing countries and poor people can benefit from increased investment in agriculture – a potential double dividend.

The mitigation potential of agriculture

Many agricultural GHG mitigation opportunities use current technologies and can be implemented immediately. These include:

Enhancing agricultural (soil and aboveground biomass) carbon sequestration;
Allowing soil carbon and agricultural/agroforestry biomass to be eligible for CDM payments;
Reducing nitrous oxide emissions through improved soil and efficient nitrogen fertiliser management and more energy-efficient nitrogen fertiliser manufacture;
Reducing methane emission from flooded rice systems;
Reducing methane emission from ruminant livestock systems.

What does an eventual Copenhagen agreed outcome need to cover?

International climate change agreements and actions should be strengthened to:

Deliver substantial emission reductions through agriculture;
Increase carbon sequestration through better land and water management;
Improve food security in developing countries; and,
Ensure that poor people and smallholder farmers benefit from any agreements.

In order to achieve these objectives any future climate change deal has to ensure:

That the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) be expanded to include soil and aboveground carbon in agriculture;
That the CDM measurement methodology requirements be changed to encompass agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU), and to enable developing country smallholder famers’ to access the associated benefits;
That agriculture is part of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) in developing countries and that capacity building, technical assistance and financial support be made available to support this transition;
That agriculture be explicitly included in adaptation funding and that sectoral approaches be allowed;
That contributions to adaptation and climate resilience measures be considered part of a long term, comprehensive and effective approach to rural development in developing countries;
That investments in adaptation measures by multi-lateral and bilateral institutions are based on country development priorities;
That adaptation and mitigation benefits in development investment planning for agriculture are linked;
That advocacy for increased North-South-South cooperation for transferring knowledge and technologies to support adaptation in the agricultural sector, whilst generating mitigation benefits, be undertaken;
That research into simple and effective methodologies for enabling the inclusion of AFOLU into the post-2012 CDM be undertaken.

What are the challenges to including agriculture in climate change negotiations?

Complex methodologies are an obstacle to the effective implementation of agricultural sector projects in the CDM;
Difficulties related to the reliable and cost-effective measurement of GHG emissions and reductions from agriculture entail a barrier to project implementation;
Soil carbon and above-ground agricultural carbon fall outside the current definition of land use activities, making them ineligible in this category;
Lack of capacity and capital in most developing countries limits their ability to undertake CDM projects.

By addressing measurement and methodological obstacles that formerly limited the inclusion of agriculture, forest and other land use (AFOLU) into the CDM, it is possible to ensure that developing countries and smallholder farmers benefit from any and all future climate change deals while contributing to global GHG reductions.

Motivated by this outlook, the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development believes that continued work on a long term, comprehensive and effective approach to climate change adaptation and mitigation through agriculture post-2012 is both necessary and achievable.

These questions and related challenges were taken up at a multi-stakeholder event on Agriculture and Climate Change: Advancing Agriculture in a Copenhagen Agreed Outcome and Beyond, co-organised by the Platform and the European Commission Directorate-General for Development in Brussels, 25 June, 2009.

Footnote 1