Climate-smart Agriculturein relation to REDD+

Peter HolmgrenFAO

8 June 2011

Two Goals of Our Time

1. Achieving Food Security– 1 billion hungry– Food production to increase 70% by 2050– Adaptation to Climate Change critical

2. Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change– ”2 degree goal” requires major emission cuts– Agriculture and Land use = 30% of emissions..– ..and needs to be part of the solution

A Sustainable Development landscape

National ->International

National ->Local Climate

UNFCCC“Carbon”

Biodiversity

CBD“Species”

Food Security

WSFS“Calories”

+Human rights,Health, Trade, Education, .....

LOCAL REALITIES

GLOBAL OBJECTIVES

C l i m a t e – s m a r t A g r i c u l t u r e

Climate-smart Agriculture

Agriculture* that sustainably:

• increases productivity

• increases resilience (adaptation)

• reduces/removes GHGs

AND

• enhances achievement of national food security and development goals

ADRESSES MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES!*) FAO includes agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors in the “agriculture”

concept

www Practices and Policies

• Increased productivity and resilience and less emissions is the “win-win-win”

• Often but not always possible

• Some knowledge gaps

• Multiple-objective policies needed

– Success should not be determined through single- objective measures (e.g. GHG emissions)

– Single-objective actions should generally be avoided

– Local actions should not be micro-managed through detailed accounting (proxy-based policies more efficient)

Action examples Can help Food Security and Resilience

Can help meet CC Mitigation

Increase productivity (yields per area) under environmental and sustainability constraints

Yes (yes)

Reduce expansion of agriculture and sustainable forest management

Yes

Effective water use Yes (yes)

Reduce losses in / more efficient agricultural practises

Yes Yes

Reduce losses in food processing and handling

Yes Yes

Improve agricultural markets and incentives

Yes Yes

Carbon sequestration in vegetation and soil

(yes) Yes

Combining Finance

0

1600

Annualagricultureinvestment

Annual EUCAP

CancúnGreen Fund

REDD+readiness

finance

• What difference can climate finance make?

Is Agriculture relevant to REDD+?

100 years in the Nordic countries

What are we talking about?

• Deforestation– Conversion of forests to other land uses, in

most cases agriculture

• Forest Degradation– Result of pressure on forest resources, very

often caused by agriculture-related activities (fire, fuel, fodder, grazing, shifting cultivation)

• Enhancing Forest Carbon Stock– Reversing forest degradation, and also

potentially afforesting previous agriculture land

The right REDD+ focus?

No. ‘It’s the agriculture, stu...’

Relative importance of REDD+International National Local

REDD+ Mitigation Actions and Payments

Other land use actions that generateincome and food security

Concluding remarks

• Climate-smart agriculture is an approach that embraces multiple objectives in the agriculture sectors

• Emissions addressed in REDD+ very often originate in agriculture-related activities

• Success in REDD+ depends on measures taken in agriculture sectors