Presentation by Lini Wollenberg, CCAFS, at the CLIFF-GRADS workshop on 6-7 October 2019 in Bali.
The two-day workshop was organized by the CCAFS Low Emissions Development Flagship and the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA). Read more: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/cliff-grads-workshop
2. Why research mitigation in
agriculture and food
systems?
1. Significant
• 10-12% of global emissions
• Agriculture contributes on average
30% of countries’ total emissions
2. Necessary
Reductions in other sectors will not
be enough to achieve 2 °C and 1.5
°C targets
3. Possible
Many practices are compatible with
SDGs, hence the possibility of “low
emissions development”
Agricultureemissions,bycountry
Percentofnationalemissionsfromagriculture
Richards et al. 2015
3. Big questions that we need to answer
• Is it possible to meet future food security, economic growth and
other sustainable development goals (SDGs) while reducing
greenhouse gas emissions?
• What are the most important mitigation opportunities and best
approaches for achieving them at large scales?
• What are practical MRV options?
• Are NDCs aligned with mitigation priorities
in the agriculture sector?
4. Global sources of agricultural emissions
Source: Carbon Disclosure Project. 2015. The Forgotten 10%. London: Carbon
Disclosure Project. Available from: www.cdp.net
6. Countries planning action
104 countries included mitigation in agriculture in their NDCs
Richards 2018
https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handl
e/10568/73255
<50% of the top 10
developing countries with
the largest opportunities to
scale up mitigation
included mitigation in their
NDC.
8. • Paddy rice - alternate wetting and drying (AWD)
• Livestock systems - improving feeding, animal and herd management;
pasture management
• Cereal crops- building soil organic matter, e.g. through integrated soil
fertility management; nutrient efficiency through technologies such as urea
deep placement; BNI in crops
• Perennial crops- transitioning from annual crops or degraded land to
agroforestry, forestry or grassland
Most important LED options
• Avoided conversion of high carbon landscapes
(forests, peatlands, mangroves, grasslands)
• Reduced food loss and waste- storage, packaging,
waste recycling
• Supply chain energy use – fertilizer production, cooling,
transportation
• Dietary shifts- shift to low emissions food products, e.g.
beef to chicken
9. How can research lead to impacts?
Especially impacts at large
scales?
10. Engage with potential research users
Communicate Collaborate Seize the
opportunity
The three C’s
(Carpe Diem)
12. Communicate
Review of MRV of Livestock Emissions
• Draft report
• Workshop with 22
countries
• Final report
13. Collaborate: Private drone companies
scale out technologies for better N
management in Mexico
• 3 drone companies delivering N
recommendations to farmers
using NDVI from their drones
and an algorithm developed by
CIMMYT and collaborators.
• Farmers are willing to pay for
this service (approx. 3 UDS /
ha per flight.
• N saving of ca. 60 – 70 kgN/ha
Slide courtesy of Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio,
CIMMYT
15. • Thailand is 4th largest emitter of
paddy rice GHGs globally
• 5-year NAMA project: low-emission
production; policy formulation and
supporting measures
• 100,000 farmers in 6 provinces
• GHG reduction of ~1 million tons of
CO2eq
Thai Rice NAMA support project approved for ~ EUR 15 M
funding
Seize the opportunity
16. Seize the opportunity
Tier 2 MRV of livestock emissions in China
Developing Guidance for MRV Implementation at the Provincial
Level
Aim: Develop methods and systems for Tier 2 MRV of livestock
emissions at provincial level (Hebei Province) in China.
Partners: CAAS, with GRA, CCAFS
Activities:
• Develop IPCC tier 2 MRV guidance for livestock emissions
• Consultation and planning implementation of guidance,
• Test implementation of Tier II MRV at provincial level.
17. Key tool for planning impacts:
Impact pathway and theory of change (TOC)
TOC: How and why an intervention leads to desired change
Describes the mini-steps that lead to a long term goal and the
connections between these activities
Causally links inputs and activities to a chain of observable
outcomes
Roadmap, an engine of change, a theory of action etc.
19. Summary
• Work on significant problems with the potential for large-scale
impact
• Engage with implementers: Three C’s
• Communication- effective graphics, high profile
journals, organizations, websiteswork directly with your
audience, enable two-way, iterative communication
• Collaboration- Collaborate at any stage: problem
definition, design of innovation, translation of research
findings, etc, public-private partnerships, business case
Seize the opportunity (Carpe diem)- Work with program
and policy implementers or people in their circles
Plan engagement with theory of change, impact pathway
Seek long-term engagement, using iterative, adaptive cycles,
with wide, “disruptive” framing of problems
20. Concrete opportunities for your research
to have impact
• High impact journals: e.g., Nature, Science, PNAS, Global Change
Biology
• Commissioned (demand-driven) research/consultancies (countries,
supply chain actors, development banks, GCF, other investors,
development projects)
• Partnerships with implementation or policy organizations on action
research (ditto)
• IPCC reports, Currently 6th Assessment Cycle
WG3 – Mitigation of Climate change – available July 2021
AR6 Synthesis to be completed by 2022 for first Paris Agreement stock
take.
Cut-off dates:
June 15, 2020 cut-off for submitted papers
Jan 19, 2021 cut off for accepted papers
Getting your science into use: how to have impact (20 min presentation)
Mitigation needs and NDC commitments
Demand v supply driven research
Research partnerships and strategies for engagement: action research; commissioned research, IPCC reviews
Research strategies, impact pathways and theories of change
Adaptive management, learning and complex systems
Resources: NDCs, Dickie et al. 2014, Stein and Walters 2012, Learning for Sustainability, Thornton et al. 2017,
49Gt CO2e
Work with Pete Smith and others
Most countries seek mitigation in livestock and grassland systems or paddy rice interventions.
More than 80% of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) refer to the reduction of agricultural emissions, including livestock, in their nationally determined contribution (NDC) to mitigate climate change.
Less than 50% of the top 10 developing countries with the largest opportunities to scale CSA practices included CSA interventions in their NDC.
But, finance for mitigation in the agriculture sector is low. So not only is mitigation a problem, but so is the lack of resources to do it!
CCAFS, working with FAO, examined the mitigation co-benefits of IFAD and USAID’s agricultural investment portfolios.
This figure shows the USAID analysis, for 25 diverse agricultural development projects and several dozens of practices across 15 countries in 3 continents.
You can see that across the entire portfolio,blue is negative emissions, yellow is positive, that ag investments resulted in substantial net mitigation co-benefits, 2.6 MtCO2e/yr. Looking at interventions across categories you can see that the major source of emissions was livestock and secondarily fertilizer use, but that this was offset by land use change and rice and crop management.
So current trajectories of agricultural development can yield substantial mitigation co-benefits, especially when considered at the larger portfolio level.
That is the good news…
******
Landscape and crop transitions
1) Landscape transitions- Within the agricultural development projects, project interventions focused on both avoided land conversion (avoided change from forest) and active land conversion (agricultural or degraded lands changed to forest).
2) Crop transitions- This area include transitions to perennial crops or agroforestry. Also transitions from flooded rice systems to other crops such as wheat. Transitions land into irrigated rice. (Check why 5802 in positive)
Management practice improvements
1) Rice crops- AWD, UDP, Short Duration Rice
2) Crops- Soil, manure, and water management improvements- also includes crop residue burning reduction and perennial management.
3) Fertilizer- increases and decreases
4) Livestock- herd size management, feed quality and breeding improvements. Grassland increases. With better feeding practices and increases in cow weight comes increased emissions.
- Thailand is the 4th largest emitted of rice-related GHG. Rice production accounts for almost 60% of emissions from agricultural activities.
- The 5-year Thai Rice NAMA project will focus on low-emission production (i.e. AWD, laser land levelling, straw and stubble management, site-specific nutrient management, etc.) and policy formulation and supporting measures.
- It targets to reach 100,000 farmers in 6 provinces in Thailand, which can contribute to GHG reduction of about 1 million tons of CO2eq.
The consortium of GIZ, SRP, IRRI-CCAFS and public- and private sectors worked closely with the Thai Rice Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
Thai Rice Dep. and MoNRE with the consortium comprising GIZ, IRRI-CCAFS and private sector partners
See https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/
Working Group III
Socio-economic scenarios, modelling and transitions at the global, regional, national and local scales including integrated assessment approaches.
Energy systems including supply and energy demand sectors (e.g., industry, transport, buildings). Mitigation responses in agriculture, forestry, land use and waste.
Consumption patterns, human behavior and greenhouse gas emissions, including economic, psychological, sociological and cultural aspects.
Policies, agreements and instruments at the international, national and subnational levels, including those at the city level.
Technology innovation, transfer and deployment.
Financial aspects of response options
https://www.weadapt.org/knowledge-base/using-climate-information/what-farmers-know-about-climate-information-services-in-Rwanda
https://iri.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/CWP_MAP_STATS-02.png
A focus on science that informs and affects planning and decision making in a real-world setting. Through our partner networks, we plan to use our innovations in climate information, targeted through social science, economics, health, agriculture and other research, to improve local decisions. We want to improve the performance of the entire food system; for example, helping maximize production and reduce losses, improving prediction and management of flood and drought risks, enabling better financial practices and pinpointing needed relief efforts better and earlier when hunger does occur.
Addressing data challenges is a critical first step to success. Many countries have significant gaps in their historical weather and climate records. Sometimes extensive data exists but it is unavailable to use because it is not digitized, or because of national data sharing policies. Historical climate data help us understand natural climate cycles and their effect on food systems, human health and water supplies. High-quality climate data allow us to see how climate varies in one place season-to-season, and over years and decades, and how common severe droughts and other events have been. If observational records are incomplete, climate forecasts and projections are likely to be less skillful. IRI is already overcoming such challenges in Africa, for example, through its Enhancing National Climate Services initiative (ENACTS).
Farmers’ awareness of climate change varies by province.
Few farmers routinely access and use climate information.
Limited awareness and relevance of available climate information limit its use.
Several communication channels are important for ensuring farmers have equitable access to useful climate information.
Few farmers actively seek climate information.
Awareness and access to climate information are gender-dependent.
Farmers face several challenges to using climate information effectively.
Training offers opportunity to overcome the challenges that farmers face.
Low use of climate information may be linked to low farmer resilience.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937801300232X
Recent decision-oriented approaches that aim to overcome this situation are framed within a “pathways” metaphor to emphasise the need for robust decision making within adaptive processes in the face of uncertainty and inter-temporal complexity. However, to date, such “adaptation pathways” approaches have mostly focused on contexts with clearly identified decision-makers and unambiguous goals; as a result, they generally assume prevailing governance regimes are conducive for adaptation and hence constrain responses to proximate causes of vulnerability. In this paper, we explore a broader conceptualisation of “adaptation pathways” that draws on ‘pathways thinking’ in the sustainable development domain to consider the implications of path dependency, interactions between adaptation plans, vested interests and global change, and situations where values, interests, or institutions constrain societal responses to change. This re-conceptualisation of adaptation pathways aims to inform decision makers about integrating incremental actions on proximate causes with the transformative aspects of societal change.