Soil carbon stocks in tropical pasture systems in Colombia’s Orinoquía region: supporting readiness for climate finance

Key messages: ■ Using field measurements, it was found that pastures in clay soils in the Orinoquía region can store as more than 200 tCha-1 (0-100 cm). Results are 40% higher than the IPCC default values (0-30cm). ■ Close to 30% of the total SOC stock were found in the top 0-20 cm soil layer, highlighting the importance of evaluating deeper soil layers in SOC assessments. ■ Improving pasture systems have the potential to accumulate SOC, especially in the topsoil layer. This may be a consequence of higher forage production in improved pastures and cattle waste depositions. ■ Clay soils in Orinoquía shows a large potential for SOC sequestration through pasture improvement (~2.0 tCha-1y-1; 0-20 cm). This rate should be reduced overtime once SOC stocks approach a new steady-state. Therefore, future monitoring is critical to validating findings and better understanding SOC changes in the region. ■ This info note reports high sequestration potential for grassland in Colombia's Orinoquía region, which can be attractive for climate finance. Information is also provided to improve SOC estimation and implement SOC monitoring systems

Making climate finance work in agriculture

This discussion paper was produced as a background documentfor the 2016 FAO State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report. It was produced through desk research and analysis of existing agricultural and climate finance literature. Moreover, qualitative interviews with key experts representing different stakeholder groups in the agriculture, climate, and financial sectors were conducted to inform the potential opportunities and innovations that should be further explored to make climate finance work for agriculture. Finally, a collection of supporting case studies were provided by different stakeholders to showcase some of the most successful and innovative examples already being implemented in the climate finance community.It is important to note that this is a discussion paper that aims to explore the intersection between climate and agriculture finance by generating dialogue. Hence, the paper explores a relatively new field and proposes innovative interventions that either are being tested or could be tested to increase the leverage of private capital and strengthen the links between financial institutions on the one hand and smallholder farmers and SMEs on the other. The objective of the paper is to generate discussion around this topic and, therefore, no blanket recommendations or descriptive interventions are proposed. A growing population and changing diets are driving up the demand for food. Production is struggling to keep up as crop yields level off in many parts of the world, ocean health declines, and natural resources— including soils, water and biodiversity—are stretched dangerously thin. Climate change is critically interrelated with agriculture. On the one hand, agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. This paper proposes three different avenues to use climate finance to achieve this goal: a) Designing and adapting innovative mechanisms to leverage additional sources of capital, from both public and private sources, that can be directed towards climate smartinvestments in the agriculture sector. b) Identifying entry points for directing climate finance into agriculture and for linking FIs to smallholders and agricultural SMEs, including through capacity building and technical assistance. c) Providing technical assistance to increase investments in agriculture. Finally, this paper presents several suggestions to contribute to the achievement of the ideas presented in this paper, including the need for increased knowledge on innovative financial instruments and mechanisms, bridging information gaps, identifying opportunities, promoting dialogue and cooperation, and designing an action plan to move this agenda forward

Climate Smart Agriculture Country Profile Data

This article describes a Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) database collected from 34 countries, 16 in Africa, 7 in Asia and 11 in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in collaboration with various stakeholders in respective countries. The dataset is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative data collected via a participatory approach that involved several players from different levels; farmers, input suppliers, processors, traders, policymakers, and donors. Primary data was collected from country experts in interviews, focus group discussions and workshops; a semi-structured survey questionnaire was used to conduct interviews and guide focus group discussions. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data in workshops. Secondary data on various agricultural indicators required for country CSA profiling were accessed via national and global public repositories. The data comprise of CSA practices, CSA scores across the three CSA pillars for selected production systems or value chains, existing climate-related policies at country level, and institutions implementing, overseeing or developing climate policies and interventions. The data shows CSA adoption levels, barriers to adoption and type of farmers using each of the practices the most. Over 1500 experts were interviewed in data collection (2020-05-07

Smart Energy in Haushalten : Technologien, Geschäftsmodelle, Akzeptanz und Wirtschaftlichkeit

Die Digitalisierung des deutschen Energiesystems wird als eine wichtige Voraussetzung für das Gelingen der Energiewende gesehen. Insbesondere im Bereich der Elektrizitätsversorgung kann Digitalisierung die Flexibilitätspotenziale, z. B. für das Verteilnetz, steigern. Dafür sollen klassische Energietechnologien (der Erzeugung, Speicherung und Verbraucher) mit Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) oder "Internet-of-Things"-Technologien (IoT) zusammenspielen. Auf diese Weise wandelt sich das Energieversorgungssystem beispielsweise im Elektrizitätsbereich von einem unidirektionalen Netz zu einem bidirektionalen Netzwerk, ein sogenanntes Smart Grid. Sowohl Energie als auch energiebezogene Informationen können zwischen Verbrauchern, Netzbetreibern sowie zwischen Energieerzeugungsanlagen und Energiespeichern ausgetauscht werden. In diesem Zusammenhang entwickeln Unternehmen innovative smarte Produkte und Dienstleistungen für private Haushalte, z. B. Smart Home Systeme, Energiemanagementsysteme, Smart Meter, intelligente Beleuchtungssysteme oder sie bieten digitale Dienstleistungen wie z. B. die datenbasierte Fernwartung von Photovoltaik-Anlagen an

Smart Energy in Haushalten: Technologien, Geschäftsmodelle, Akzeptanz und Wirtschaftlichkeit

Die Digitalisierung des deutschen Energiesystems wird als eine wichtige Voraussetzung für dasGelingen der Energiewende gesehen. Insbesondere im Bereich der Elektrizitätsversorgung kannDigitalisierung die Flexibilitätspotenziale, z. B. für das Verteilnetz, steigern. Dafür sollen klassischeEnergietechnologien (der Erzeugung, Speicherung und Verbraucher) mit Informations- undKommunikationstechnologien (IKT) oder „Internet-of-Things“-Technologien (IoT) zusammenspielen.Auf diese Weise wandelt sich das Energieversorgungssystem beispielsweise im Elektrizitätsbereichvon ei

Climate-smart agriculture for food security

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, which includes most of the world's poor. Climate change disrupts food markets, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Threats can be reduced by increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. CSA promotes coordinated actions by farmers, researchers, private sector, civil society and policymakers towards climate-resilient pathways through four main action areas: (1) building evidence; (2) increasing local institutional effectiveness; (3) fostering coherence between climate and agricultural policies; and (4) linking climate and agricultural financing. CSA differs from 'business-as-usual' approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions

Climate-smart agriculture agriculture for food security

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, which includes most of the world's poor. Climate change disrupts food markets, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Threats can be reduced by increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. CSA promotes coordinated actions by farmers, researchers, private sector, civil society and policymakers towards climate-resilient pathways through four main action areas: (1) building evidence; (2) increasing local institutional effectiveness; (3) fostering coherence between climate and agricultural policies; and (4) linking climate and agricultural financing. CSA differs from 'business-as-usual' approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions. (Résumé d'auteur

Peer-reviewed version Climate-smart agriculture for food security Climate-smart agriculture for food security

Abstract Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, which includes most of the world's poor. Climate change disrupts food markets, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Threats can be reduced by increasing adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. CSA promotes coordinated actions by farmers, researchers, private sector, civil society and policymakers towards climate-resilient pathways through four main action areas: 1) building evidence; 2) increasing local institutional effectiveness; 3) fostering coherence between climate and agricultural policies; and 4) linking climate and agricultural financing. CSA differs from "business-as-usual" approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions

Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 °C target

More than 100 countries pledged to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yet technical information about how much mitigation is needed in the sector vs. how much is feasible remains poor. We identify a preliminary global target for reducing emissions from agriculture of ~1 GtCO2e yr−1 by 2030 to limit warming in 2100 to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Yet plausible agricultural development pathways with mitigation cobenefits deliver only 21–40% of needed mitigation. The target indicates that more transformative technical and policy options will be needed, such as methane inhibitors and finance for new practices. A more comprehensive target for the 2 °C limit should be developed to include soil carbon and agriculture-related mitigation options. Excluding agricultural emissions from mitigation targets and plans will increase the cost of mitigation in other sectors or reduce the feasibility of meeting the 2 °C limit