Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunities in Agricultural Landscapes : A Practitioner’s Guide to Agricultural and Land Resources Management
Agriculture, and the patterns of land-use change that are associated with it, have a significant ecological footprint, including the effects it has on climate change, accounting for about one-quarter of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/09/26763283/greenhouse-gas-mitigation-opportunities-agricultural-landscapes-practitioner’s-guide-agricultural-land-resources-management http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25171 |
| Summary: | Agriculture, and the patterns of
land-use change that are associated with it, have a
significant ecological footprint, including the effects it
has on climate change, accounting for about one-quarter of
anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. Yet
agriculture is also the only economic sector in which
opportunities are present to mitigate climate change, mainly
by removing substantial volumes of carbon from the
atmosphere and sequestering them in soils and plant tissues.
This report synthesizes information on the many areas in
which agricultural GHG emissions can be reduced. Its focus
is on mitigation, though many if not most of the measures
described address adaptation and resilience as well. The
three pillars of CSA serve two purposes in this respect,
which is highly appropriate because we can never take our
eyes off the imperative of increasing productivity and
employing agriculture as an instrument for economic
development. The report highlights the pattern of emissions
in agricultural landscapes and the primary sources of these
emissions. Thereafter, it reviews mitigation opportunities
in croplands, pastures, livestock, soil management,
biofuels, and elsewhere, followed by case studies that
illustrate practical examples. These practical lessons are
useful in contributing to the knowledge base of good
practices. The report then turns to the factors that
constrain or enable the uptake of climate-smart solutions,
such as those depicted in the case studies, and discusses
ways to overcome the constraints and elements of enabling
environments in which mitigation alternatives become widely
embraced. The final exercise feeding into the report is a
review of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—an
outline of country- level strategies to address climate
change. This also presents recommendations for prioritizing
World Bank (Bank) mitigation engagement in each region.
Approaches to filling mitigation financing and knowledge
gaps in country programs, boost the Bank’s mitigation
investment portfolio, and create a cohesive strategy for
implementing mitigation technologies and practices are discussed. |
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