Tag: greenhouse gases

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the global food system

Key messages

  • Food system emissions are critical: The global food system contributes 29% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions, with AFOLU accounting for 18% of global emissions. Non-AFOLU emissions (energy, waste, industry) – which are often overlooked – add 11% and are becoming the dominant source of food system emissions in developed countries.
  • Avoiding aggregation bias: Grouping some emission sources into broad categories while breaking down others can obscure the importance of the smaller but often significant sources. Targeting these smaller sources, or ‘low-hanging fruit’, can effectively accelerate emissions reductions.
  • Closing data gaps: A lack of detailed data on land use and food system emissions hinders the identification of high-impact mitigation strategies. More granular, reliable data collection at national and subnational levels is essential for effective policymaking.
  • NDC segmentation: NDCs are organized around the four economic sectors (AFOLU, energy, IPPU and waste) in the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. This hinders the development of integrated policies to reduce GHG emissions in the food system, which spans across these four sectors.
  • Collaboration, engagement and research are key: Strengthening national research and fostering collaboration across civil society, governments, academia and the private sector are vital to creating context-specific, sustainable policies that address climate-change mitigation and adaptation without threatening food security, particularly for vulnerable populations.

Targeting Landscapes to Identify Mitigation Options in Smallholder Agriculture

This chapter presents a method for targeting landscapes with the objective of assessing mitigation options for smallholder agriculture. It presents alternatives in terms of the degree of detail and complexity of the analysis, to match the requirement of research and development initiatives. We address heterogeneity in land-use decisions that is linked to the agroecological characteristics of the landscape and to the social and economic profiles of the land users. We believe that as projects implement this approach, and more data become available, the method will be refined to reduce costs and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of mitigation in smallholder agriculture. The approach is based on the assumption that landscape classifications reflect differences in land productivity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and can be used to scale up point or field-level measurements. At local level, the diversity of soils and land management can be meaningfully summarized using a suitable typology. Field types reflecting small-scale fertility gradients are correlated to land quality, land productivity and quite likely to GHG emissions. A typology can be a useful tool to connect farmers’ fields to landscape units because it represents the inherent quality of the land and human-induced changes, and connects the landscape to the existing socioeconomic profiles of smallholders. The method is explained using a smallholder system from western Kenya as an example.

Introduction to the SAMPLES Approach

This chapter explains the rationale for greenhouse gas emission estimation in tropical developing countries and why guidelines for smallholder farming systems are needed. It briefly highlights the innovations of the SAMPLES approach and explains how these advances fill a critical gap in the available quantification guidelines. The chapter concludes by describing how to use the guidelines.

Methods for Measuring Greenhouse Gas Balances and Evaluating Mitigation Options in Smallholder Agriculture

​​This book provides standards and guidelines for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and removals in smallholder agricultural systems and comparing options for climate change mitigation based on emission reductions and livelihood trade-offs. Globally, agriculture is directly responsible for about 11% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and induces an additional 17% through land use change, mostly in developing countries. Farms in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are predominately managed by smallholders, with 80% of land holdings smaller than ten hectares. However, little to no information exists on greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation potentials in smallholder agriculture. Greenhouse gas measurements in agriculture are expensive, time consuming, and error prone, challenges only exacerbated by the heterogeneity of smallholder systems and landscapes. Concerns over methodological rigor, measurement costs, and the diversity of approaches, coupled with the demand for robust information suggest it is germane for the scientific community to establish standards of measurements for quantifying GHG emissions from smallholder agriculture. Standard guidelines for use by scientists, development organizations will help generate reliable data on emissions baselines and allow rigorous comparisons of mitigation options. The guidelines described in this book, developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) and partners, are intended to inform anyone conducting field measurements of agricultural greenhouse gas sources and sinks, especially to develop IPCC Tier 2 emission factors or to compare mitigation options in smallholder systems.

Scaling Point and Plot Measurements of Greenhouse Gas Fluxes, Balances, and Intensities to Whole Farms and Landscapes

In this chapter, we first discuss the necessity and underlying premise of scaling and scaling methods. Almost all cases of agricultural GHG emissions and carbon (C) stock change research relies on disaggregated data, either spatially or by farming activity, as a fundamental input of scaling. Therefore, we then assess the utility of using empirical and process-based models with disaggregated data, specifically concentrating on the opportunities and challenges for their application to diverse smallholder farming systems in tropical regions. We describe key advancements needed to improve the confidence in results from these scaling methods in the future.

Making Trees Count in Latin America and the Caribbean: Measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of agroforestry in the UNFCCC

About one-third of countries in Latin America express an intent to use agroforestry to meet national climate commitments. Despite this interest, technical and institutional barriers often prevent agroforestry from being represented and counted in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) MRV processes such as national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and REDD+. The fact that agroforestry often isn’t counted in MRV systems has serious implications. Only if agroforestry resources can be properly measured and reported will they gain access to finance and other support, and thereby assume a prominent role as a response to climate change.

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