A Common Framework For Agriculture And Land Use In The Nationally Determined Contributions

This paper presents a sector-specific framework for better understanding the role of the AFOLU sector in the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) at the country and aggregate level. It is designed to facilitate the stocktaking and analysis of national climate change mitigation and adaptation priorities, barriers to implementation and support needs specific to the AFOLU sector in order to inform country programming and guide the flow of external support. It can also be used at the country-level to facilitate NDC enhancement and encourage compliance with the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement. As such, it is directed at national policy makers sitting in ministries of environment, agriculture, finance and social planning, as well as at international and non-governmental organizations, development agencies and banks and finance institutions. To date, the framework has been adopted by FAO to conduct a series of regional-level analysis of the role of the AFOLU sector in the NDCs.

This report provides a unique, sector-specific synthesis of the agriculture, water and land use sectors in the nationally determined contributions from Near East and North Africa. It summarizes the substantial contributions already put forward by countries, opportunities for further action and the gaps, barriers and needs that will need to be addressed if the region is to raise mitigation and adaptation ambitions. The findings of this report will help member countries to reflect on their progress in advancing toward nationally determined contributions priorities for agriculture, water and land use, and associated national climate goals including related targets under the Sustainable Development Goals. The analysis also helps to make clear the links between the nationally determined contributions from the region and the ongoing work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in support of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA). Finally, the report serves as a guide to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, as well as other international actors, of the support that will be required to help countries in the region move forward to implement agriculture, water and land use priorities in their NDCs and ensure that future commitments from the sector are quantifiable, verifiable and sufficiently ambitious.

The agriculture and land use sector (crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture) hereafter referred to as the AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) sector for ease of reference – features prominently amongst the adaptation and mitigation contributions set forth in the nationally determined contribution (NDCs) – up to 96 and 88 percent, respectively (FAO, 2016a). This paper presents a step-by-step methodology for assessing the overall coverage of mitigation and adaptation policies and measures in the NDCs, as compared against major greenhouse gas (GHG) emission “hotspots” and adaptation “hotspots” in the AFOLU sector. It also provides a gap-filling methodology for estimating economy-wide and sector-specific baseline and NDC mitigation scenarios based on regional trends. The overall objective is to support national policy makers in NDC review and revision processes so as to better align or integrate mitigation and adaptation policies to address sectoral GHG and adaptation hotspots. To date, the sector-specific methodology has been adopted by FAO to conduct a series of mitigation and adaptation policy coverage in the NDCs at the regional-level, including Eastern Africa (FAO, 2017), Europe and Central Asia (FAO, 2019), Asia (FAO, 2020b) and the Pacific (FAO, 2020c), Latin America (FAO, 2020d) and the Caribbean (FAO, 2020e).

This report provides a unique, sector-specific synthesis of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted by countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It summarizes the substantial contributions already put forward by countries, opportunities for further action, and the gaps, barriers, and needs that will need to be addressed if the agriculture and land-use sectors in sub-Saharan Africa are to raise mitigation and adaptation ambitions. The findings of this report will help FAO Members to reflect on their progress in advancing toward NDC implementation of their agriculture and land-use priorities, as well as illustrate potential areas for enhancing mitigation and adaptation ambition in future NDCs. The analysis also helps to clarify the links between the NDCs from the region and the 2030 Agenda and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). Finally, the report serves as a guide to FAO, and other organizations in the region, to design targeted, evidenced-based support programmes that support Member Countries to fill current implementation gaps and scale up climate action in the agriculture and land-use sectors.

The regional analysis provided in this report reflects the dynamism and diversity existing within Asia. Asia is experiencing dramatic demographic changes, high population growth, urbanization and growing economic inequities. The food system in the region varies significantly between and within its many sub-regions in terms of climate, landscapes, ecosystems and farming systems. All of these factors provide the context for climate action at the national level and have shaped to some extent how agriculture is reflected in countries respective National Determined Contributions. This report provides a unique, sector-specific synthesis of the NDCs from Asia. It summarizes the substantial contributions already put forward by countries, opportunities for further action and the gaps, barriers and needs that will need to be addressed if the agriculture sector in Asia is to raise mitigation and adaptation ambitions. The findings of this report will help member countries to reflect on their progress in advancing toward NDC priorities for agriculture and associated national climate goals including related targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The analysis also helps to make clear the links between the NDCs from the region and the ongoing work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in support of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA).

The Nationally Determined Contribution Expert Tool (NEXT) is a greenhouse gas accounting tool developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to support annual environmental impact assessment for the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use sector (AFOLU). It provides a 30-year time series of annual and cumulated estimates of carbon removal and greenhouse gas emission reductions from actions determined by Parties in their climate policies. NEXT was developed using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodologies, and estimates can be made using either the IPCC 2006 guidelines or the IPCC 2019 refinement to the IPCC 2006 which are both complemented with the IPCC 2013 Wetlands Supplement. The tool was designed to provide results that directly respond to the provisions of the Enhanced Transparency Framework and support the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) development as required by the modalities, procedures and guidelines. NEXT provides a detailed temporal series of results and a wide set of indicators, including the social value of carbon, enabling a comprehensive environmental and economic overview of climate actions in achieving mitigation targets. The tool helps countries to interpret, track and scale up ambition of their NDCs which could ultimately inform the global stocktake of the Paris Agreement in a harmonized way.

This report provides a unique, sector-specific synthesis of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from Latin America. It summarizes the substantial contributions already put forward by countries, opportunities for further action and the gaps, barriers and needs that will need to be addressed if the agriculture and land use sectors in Latin America are to raise mitigation and adaptation ambitions. The findings of this report will help member countries to reflect on their progress in advancing toward NDC priorities for agriculture and associated national climate goals including related targets under the SDGs. The analysis also helps to clarify the links between the NDCs from the region and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). Finally, the report serves as a guide to FAO, as well as other international actors, for the support that will be required to help countries in the region to move forward to implement agriculture and land use sector priorities in their NDCs and ensure that future commitments from the agriculture sector are quantifiable, verifiable and sufficiently ambitious.

As the pace of climate change is increasing, it is more important than ever to conserve, characterize and sustainably use genetic resources for food and griculture. Over millennia farmers, livestock keepers, fisherfolk and forest dwellers have adapted their production systems to changing environmental conditions, relying on genetic resources for food and agriculture. However, these resources are still not receiving the attention they deserve given their enormous importance. The main focus of this study is the state of current use of genetic resources in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. Each chapter explores the impacts of climate change on genetic resources and also considers the significance of genetic resources to climate change adaptation and mitigation.