COP26: What Does It Mean for the Agriculture Sector?

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

Nationally determined contributions to the 2015 Paris Agreement goals: transparency in communications from developing country Parties

Climate change mitigation strategies for agriculture: an analysis of nationally determined contributions, biennial reports and biennial update reports

Toward a Super-COP? Timing, Temporality, and Rethinking World Climate Governance

The wide spectrum of national priorities and attendant climate positions among parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been a hallmark of international climate negotiations. The Paris Agreement was lauded as a landmark step toward global climate action because it represented a consensus of more than 190 countries. Taken in a vacuum, however, the agreement masks important differences in climate positions and capabilities among its signatory parties. Because the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are the key instruments of post-Paris climate commitments, analysis of salient themes revealed in the NDCs is critical to understanding the dynamics of climate negotiations. We present a quantitative content analysis of 165 NDCs to investigate convergence and divergence in the positions of UNFCCC parties and party groupings. We use a hierarchical cluster analysis based on references to key terms of climate discourse to measure the internal cohesion of traditional party groupings and emergent coalitions. Our analysis shows that the greatest difference in NDC content occurs between the Annex I (composed mainly of the Umbrella Group, European Union, Environmental Integrity Group, and unaffiliated parties) and non-Annex I countries. Furthermore, we show that the landscape of climate priorities is considerably more complex than a binary Annex I–non-Annex I divide, as indicated by convergence on climate action between large developing economies and smaller, less developed, active negotiator groupings. Understanding congruence and disparities among NDCs, and their potential to promote cooperation or division among parties, will be critical to developing equitable and sustainable long-term climate solutions. Key Words: climate change, climate policy, cluster analysis, NDC, UNFCCC.

Key messages Article 13 of the Paris Agreement calls for enhanced transparency in climate actions. At the same time, non-state actors (NSAs) are increasingly referred to within the text of decisions and initiatives by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, the continued use of such a broad and undefined term to represent a complex set of stakeholders - ranging from academia to private sector, civil society to indigenous peoples groups - is unhelpful. There cannot be a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to NSAs The private sector is a complex and diverse sub-set of NSAs, with significant variations in capacity, motivations and priorities across companies and value chains. Their response to climate change will be key to setting and achieving the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) made by Parties to the UNFCCC. A large number of international corporations have made voluntary commitments to reduce their negative environmental and social impacts in the agriculture and forestry sectors, within their own operations as well as those of third-party suppliers. Many of these pledges have now been registered on the UNFCCC non-state actor platform (NAZCA). As yet, however, there is no systematic way to track and verify these pledges and their impacts. One major risk is that stringent and rapidly implemented corporate commitments related to sustainable and 'deforestation free' supply chains will exclude already marginalized smallholders, who often operate within broader informal economies, resulting in indirect detrimental social and environmental impacts. Aside from the Cancun safeguards, such risks remain unrecognized by the UNFCCC. Public funds, such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF), could be used to financially support smallholders and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and upgrade their production systems through the adoption of improved practices and by facilitating their access to sustainable supply chains. Governments, indigenous peoples groups and civil society organizations, as well as corporations themselves, are monitoring the progress and impact of NSA pledges at different spatial scales. But significant challenges remain regarding the alignment of methods, metrics and data sets, disclosure of information, and the verification and monitoring of indirect impacts. There is currently no systematic way to track delivery of voluntary commitments through transparent processes that are open to wider society. Additional efforts, including national and international political architectures are needed. There is justification for the UNFCCC to develop guidance around NSA engagement in climate mitigation and adaptation actions. This can help to distinguish between different groups of NSAs and track the activities undertaken by diverse private sector actors, to better understand how they contribute to achieving NDCs.

Solely economic mitigation strategy suggests upward revision of nationally determined contributions

The Paris Agreement presents a historical landmark in the global response to climate change and sets out the objective of limiting global warming to well below 2 °C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. However, the national climate change efforts to which Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have committed themselves in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are largely insufficient, and only cover one third of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to reach this temperature goal (UNEP 2017). There is still a significant gap between 2030 emission levels and a least-cost 2 °C pathway amounting to 11 GtCO2e or even as much as 13.5 GtCO2e, taking only unconditional NDCs into account (UNEP 2017). Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, albeit at a slower rate, and even though the Parties must increase the goals of their NDCs over time, it is unlikely that the emissions reductions thus achieved will be sufficient (UNEP 2017).

Climate negotiations: time to implement planetary health promises

ABSTRACTThe 2015 Paris Agreement was adopted at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the run-up to COP 21, most UNFCCC Parties put forward intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), containing mitigation pledges. These INDCs are now being confirmed as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), as governments formally ratify the Paris Agreement. NDCs are supposed to provide transparent, quantifiable, comparable, and verifiable mitigation objectives. However, there is neither methodological nor data consistency in the way Parties have prepared their NDCs. This article showcases recent collaboration among research, government, and private institutions that contributed to the Colombian NDC. While documenting the novel research, data, and rich web of collaboration that helped the Colombian government prepare the country’s NDC, this article links this specific case with the challenges of policy-oriented and interactive models of research. Our experience confirms previous research on the importance of stakeholder interaction, transparency and openness of processes, and willingness to break disciplinary and institutional barriers. In addition, the experience points to the importance of having appropriate available resources and a local institution acting as champion for the project.POLICY RELEVANCEThe lack of methodological and data consistency in the way parties have prepared their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) can significantly slow down the progress toward limiting global warming below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. In the meantime, calls for scientists to provide ‘usable’ information are increasing and the importance of close collaboration between scientists, end-users, and stakeholders is also increasingly acknowledged. In this article we make explicit the process and research challenges faced during what was, in the authors’ opinion, the successful collaboration among scientists, governmental, and private institutions that led to the formulation of an essential component of the Colombian NDC. As policy makers move forward with the implementation of their plans and as scientists become increasingly engaged with government planning, it is essential that they are aware of the needs and demands in terms of collaborations, data, resources, and type of results necessary to produce analyses that can be made fully public and can withstand international scrutiny.

Since its inception in Rio, 1992, United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) has held 23 Conference of Parties (COP). COP21 of Paris, December 2015, by consensus, is a breakthrough in more than 25 years of debates and disputes over climate change and global warming issues. COP21 invites the world players to reduce the Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, to limit Planet’s temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, if not below 1.5, by the end of the 21st century. To meet the challenge, the main recommendations of the agreement are as follows: COP21 invites its member to propose an intended Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), towards meeting its goals, proportionate to their administrative, economic, and technological capabilities. NDCs are required to be Measurable, Reportable, and Verifi able (MRV). NDCs should be revised every 5 years on the basis of knowledge and experience gained in the process. COP21 urges the developed countries to assist the developing ones, technology-, fi nance-, and knowhow-wise to develop and execute their NDCs. Recommendations of COP12 are nonbinding. Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of UNFCCC since 1996. President H. Rouhani attended the Paris Conference and pledged to reduce Iran’s GHG emissions: a) Voluntarily by 4% in the period 2020-30; and b) Conditionally by an additional 8% by 2050. The reference year for GHG reductions is 2010 on BAU basis. Conditions for the 8% reduction are, the availability of fi nancial and technological means, and lifting of the sanctions imposed upon the country. Again, the pledges are non-binding, as for all UNFCCC parties. A Working Group on Climate Change (WGCC), stationed in the Department of Environment of Iran (DOE), is the liaison with UNFCCC. WGCC is given the task of drawing up Iran’s NDC. A fi rst draft of this document is now available to public.

Parties to the Paris Agreement (PA) have agreed on the goal of limiting the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C and are pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5 °C. Countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) comprise the main framework used to achieve this. In this context, Mozambique′s NDC includes, amongst other actions, increased renewable energy (RE) generation. This article presents the results of the assessment of greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff (REFIT), using the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) system model, in order to determine its potential contribution to Mozambique′s NDC’s goals and RE targets. Results from this study show that the REFIT regulation can be expected to contribute to reducing 0.34 MtCO2eq (0.6% of the NDC target for the electricity sector) by 2030, compared to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. However, the NDC ambition could be enhanced through the REFIT and contribute to reducing 2.54 MtCO2eq (4.3% of the NDC target for the electricity sector) by 2030. The article further discusses the requirements for a robust measuring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system for climate policies, using REFIT as a case study, to facilitate effective tracking of NDC progress and achievement and transparent reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This study examines Ethiopia’s strategies for addressing climate change challenges and the effort for subsistence of dairy farmers across different production systems. Ethiopia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), initially submitted under the Paris Agreement in 2015, was developed within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Two other key mechanisms, the Long-Term Low Emission and Climate Resilient Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) and the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Strategy, were designed to support Ethiopia’s fundamental role in global climate policy. Together, these frameworks aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. While Ethiopia is committed to mitigating climate change, its efforts to enhance national nutrition and public health through increased milk production also address global concerns. This study analyzes relevant research and international policies to assess the feasibility of achieving both objectives simultaneously. Ethiopia has witnessed a continuous rise in GHG emissions over the past two decades, with the livestock sector, particularly dairy farming, serving as a major contributor to enteric methane emissions. Traditional Ethiopian dairy practices rely on indigenous cattle breeds and conventional feeding systems, leading to large herd populations but very low milk yields. This results in a high Emission Index (EI), underscoring the need for strategic interventions. This study explores potential solutions for reducing EI, evaluates global and Ethiopian policy frameworks, and assesses methods for monitoring and estimating enteric methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions. Additionally, it examines research on emissions from various dairy farm activities in Ethiopia to provide a comprehensive understanding of mitigation strategies

Capacity building for implementation of nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement

The goal of limiting global temperature rise to “well below” 2 °C has been reaffirmed in the Paris Agreement on climate change at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21). Almost all countries submitted their decarbonization targets in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and India did as well. India’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity of national GDP in 2030 by 33–35% compared to 2005. This paper analyzes how India’s NDC commitments compare with emission trajectories consistent with well below 2 °C and 1.5 °C global temperature stabilization goals. A top-down computable general equilibrium model is used for the analysis. Our analysis shows that there are significant emission gaps between NDC and global climate stabilization targets in 2030. The energy system requires significant changes, mostly relying on renewable energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The mitigation costs would increase if India delays its abatement efforts and is locked into NDC pathways till 2030. India’s GHG emissions would peak 10 years earlier under 1.5 °C global temperature stabilization compared to the 2 °C goal. The results imply that India would need financial and technological support from developed countries to achieve emissions reductions aligned with the global long-term goal.