Special IPCC Report on Climate Change and Land

In early August 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report on Climate Change and Land. The report’s full name is Climate Change and Land, an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. It is one of three special reports that the IPCC is preparing during the current Sixth Assessment Report cycle. The report was prepared under the scientific leadership of all three IPCC Working Groups in cooperation with the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and supported by the Working Group III Technical Support Unit.

The report covers:

·      Greenhouse gas fluxes related to land;

·      Interactions between climate change and desertification, land degradation and food security;

·      Land-related impacts and risks;

·      Response options that help adapt to climate change;

·      Response options that reduce land-related emissions or enhance the take-up of carbon by land systems.

The Report will be a key scientific input into forthcoming climate and environment negotiations, such as the UNCCD COP14 in New Delhi in September 2019 and the UNFCCC COP25 in Santiago, Chile, in December 2019.

The highlights of the report are given below.

Land is a critical resource

Land is already under growing human pressure and climate change is adding to these pressures. Humans affect more than 70 per cent of ice-free land and a quarter is already degraded. At the same time, keeping global warming to well below 2ºC can be achieved only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors including land and food.

Better land management can contribute to tackling climate change, but is not the only solution. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors is essential if global warming is to be kept to well below 2ºC, if not 1.5^oC.

Land must remain productive to maintain food security as the population increases and the negative impacts of climate change on vegetation increase. This means there are limits to the contribution of land to addressing climate change, for instance through the cultivation of energy crops and afforestation. It also takes time for trees and soils to store carbon effectively. Bioenergy needs to be carefully managed to avoid risks to food security, biodiversity and land degradation.

The world is best placed to tackle climate change when there is an overall focus on sustainability.

Desertification and land degradation

When land is degraded, it becomes less productive, restricting what can be grown and reducing the soil’s ability to absorb carbon. This exacerbates climate change, while climate change in turn exacerbates land degradation in many different ways.

Roughly 500 million people live in areas that experience desertification. Drylands and areas that experience desertification are also more vulnerable to climate change and extreme events including drought, heatwaves, and dust storms, with an increasing global population providing further pressure.

The report sets out options to tackle land degradation, and prevent or adapt to further climate change. It also examines potential impacts from different levels of global warming.

Food security

Coordinated action to address climate change can simultaneously improve land, food security and nutrition, and help to end hunger.  The report highlights that climate change is affecting all four pillars of food security: availability (yield and production), access (prices and ability to obtain food), utilization (nutrition and cooking), and stability (disruptions to availability).

The report records that about one third of food produced is lost or wasted. Causes of food loss and waste differ substantially between developed and developing countries, as well as between regions. Reducing this loss and waste would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve food security.

Balanced diets featuring plant-based foods, such as coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and animal-sourced food produced sustainably in low greenhouse gas emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation to and limiting climate change

Land and climate change responses

Policies that are outside the land and energy domains, such as on transport and environment, can also make a critical difference to tackling climate change. Acting early is more cost-effective as it avoids losses.

There is real potential here through more sustainable land use, reducing over-consumption and waste of food, eliminating the clearing and burning of forests, preventing over-harvesting of fuelwood, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thus helping to address land related climate change issues.