The mitigation pillar of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA): targets and options

The need to prioritise food security in the face of a changing climate raises the question of how much agriculture should contribute to global mitigation targets. A global target for reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture of ~1 gigatonne of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (GtCO2e/yr) by 2030 would limit warming in 2100 to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet low emissions development (LED) in agriculture, based on available technologies and policies, will deliver only a portion of the needed mitigation. More transformative options will be needed, including carbon sequestration, reduced food loss and waste, and shifts in consumption

Next steps for climate change mitigation in agriculture

Agriculture can contribute significantly to climate change mitigation, but more action is needed to identify appropriate implementation mechanisms, technical guidelines, policies and sources of finance to improve readiness and capacity building

A rough estimate of the proportion of global emissions from agriculture due to smallholders

Smallholders in developing countries produce, on a very rough estimate, 5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. This figure includes emissions due to both agriculture and land use change for agriculture. Mitigation actions in smallholder agriculture now could support farm livelihoods and more sustainable agriculture in the long run, but should only be introduced where they have the potential to advance rather than constrain rural development outcomes

A gender strategy for pro-poor climate change mitigation

The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Research Program (CCAFS) of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Resources (CGIAR) CCAFS “seeks to overcome the threats to agriculture and food security in a changing climate, exploring new ways of helping vulnerable rural communities adjust to global changes in climate.”1 The CCAFS Gender Strategy (Ashby, et al. 2012) makes the case for gender analysis as critical to increased production, improved outcomes for poverty alleviation and increased well-being, and a fairer distribution of burdens and benefits in agriculture among women and men. This report proposes a gender strategy for climate change mitigation and the promotion of low emissions agriculture—the focus of CCAFS Theme 3: Pro-Poor Climate Change Mitigation. Specifically, we provide a strategy for assuring that mitigation efforts meet the goals of poverty alleviation and food security, and do so in ways that benefit poor women materially, personally and socially. We focus on women because of their historical and contemporary disadvantages, and recognize that benefits for women are generally broader and more durable to the extent men embrace those benefits, whether out of their own material interests or from commitments to family and community well-being. Although CCAFS has separated mitigation, adaptation, and risk management into three distinct research themes, we suggest these must be addressed in an integrated way to meet farmers’ needs. Farmers are primarily concerned with their well-being and that of their families and neighbors, rather than larger global environmental issues. Many also hold a ‘landscape-view’ of their home places in which water and energy sources, forests and grasslands, farms and fallows are all considered in relation to one another in contributing to farmers’ livelihood strategies, even though strategies for adaptation may emphasize one part of the landscape and mitigation another (Shames and Scherr, 2011). Initiatives to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions should therefore ideally enhance and at least not harm adaptation and risk management. Similarly adaptation should aim to minimize GHG emissions where possible

Climate readiness indicators for agriculture

Countries vary in their institutional technical and financial abilities to prepare for climate change in agriculture and to balance food security, adaptation, and mitigation goals.Indicators for climate readiness provide guidance to countries and enable monitoring progress. Readiness assessments can enable donors, investors and national decision-makers to identify where investments are needed or likely to be successful. Examples of climate readiness indicators are provided for five work areas: 1. governance and stakeholder engagement, 2. knowledge and information services, 3. climate-smart agricultural strategy and implementation frameworks, 4. national and subnational capabilities and 5. national information and accounting systems

Enhancing Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) ambition for soil organic carbon protection and sequestration

An estimated 18 to 37 billion tons of carbon could be sequestered in croplands globally over the next 20 years by implementing best practices for soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration (Zomer et al. 2017). In addition, more than 380 billion tons of carbon are at risk of loss from carbon dense peatlands in the top 20 countries with the largest peatland stocks alone (Crump 2017). SOC protection and sequestration are therefore major greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation options, especially to contribute to the negative emissions needed to achieve the 2050 global policy targets. Increasing SOC levels can also provide substantial additional benefits for adaptation, food security and biodiversity, including nutrient cycling and water availability

Agriculture's contribution to national emissions

This info note offers an overview of the distribution of agricultural emissions among countries and the relative contribution of agriculture to national emissions. It is based on three data sources: the FAOSTAT database of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) global emission estimates for 2010 and national reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Estimating global warming potential for agricultural landscapes with minimal field data and cost

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture comprise 10-12% of anthropocentric global emissions; and 76% of the agricultural emissions are generated in the developing world. Landscape GHG accounting is an effective way to efficiently develop baseline emissions and appropriate mitigation approaches. In a 9,736-hectare case study area dominated by rice and wheat in the Karnal district of Haryana state, India, the authors used a low-cost landscape agricultural GHG accounting method with limited fieldwork, remote sensing, and biogeochemical modeling. We used the DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC) model software to simulate crop growth and carbon and nitrogen cycling to estimate net GHG emissions, with information based on the mapping of cropping patterns over time using multi- resolution and multi-temporal optical remote sensing imagery. We estimated a mean net emission of 78,620 tCO2e/yr (tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year) with a 95% confidence interval of 51,212-106,028 tCO2e/yr based on uncertainties in our crop mapping and soil data. A modeling sensitivity analysis showed soil clay fraction, soil organic carbon fraction, soil density, and nitrogen amendments to be among the most sensitive factors, and therefore critical to capture in field surveys. We recommend a multi-phase approach to increase efficiency and reduce cost in GHG accounting. Field campaigns and aspects of remote sensing image characteristics can be optimized for targeted landscapes through solid background research. An appropriate modeling approach can be selected based on crop and soil characteristics. Soil data in developing world landscapes remain a significant source of uncertainty for studies like these and should remain a key research and data development effort

Livestock’s critical role in net-zero food systems

Presentation on the critical role of livestock in the global agenda for food systems to achieve net zero emissions presented by Lina Wollenberg and Ciniro Costa at COP27, Nov 2022, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt