Land-based climate change mitigation measures can affect agricultural markets and food security

Building Climate-Resilient Food Systems in East and South-East Asia: Vulnerabilities, Responses and Financing

“…Afforestation was estimated to have a larger benefit for global food security than non-CO2 emissions policies (e.g., emission tax) in agriculture could have [50] . Supply-side management (e.g., soil conservation and conservation agriculture) and demand-side improvements (e.g., dietary transformation toward sustainability and reducing food waste) are expected to relieve the side effect of mitigation in AFOLU [51,52] .…”

Costs of transitioning to net-zero emissions under future climates

“…Depending on cost, purchasing additional land with the explicit objective of planting trees to offset livestock emissions and feeding a CH 4 inhibitor such as Asparagopsis in combination with TFCE (CN1 and CN2) or lucerne (CN3 and CN4) in the pasture mix showed a promising avenue for improving pro t while also achieving carbon neutrality. As the need for non-agricultural industries to also offset their GHG emissions increases, the price of arable land is likely to increase in line with public pressure to maintain or improve institututional and organisational carbon removals 23 . As a corollary, carbon insetting (practices to reduce GHG within the value chain) may become higher priority, feasible and pro table for some land managers selling carbon credits, rather than seeking new arable land elsewhere.…”

Why Residual Emissions Matter Right Now

“…Concerns about the feasibility, sustainability, and societal impacts of carbon removal at several gigatons per year 14,15 have led to calls to moderate expectations of future carbon removal. 16 This is because terrestrial carbon removal at the scales indicated in this paper would require vast amounts of land and entail severe risks for food production and/or biosphere functioning 17,18 as well as the land rights and livelihoods of rural communities and Indigenous peoples 19 . While some industrial carbon removal techniques like direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) have a much smaller direct land footprint, this approach comes with large energy requirements, 20 which could divert energy, and critical minerals and the associated land for renewables, from other societal needs.…”