Which practices co‐deliver food security, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and combat land degradation and desertification?

Abstract

There is a clear need for transformative change in the land management and food production sectors to address the global land challenges of climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, combatting land degradation and desertification, and delivering food security (referred to hereafter as “land challenges”). We assess the potential for 40 practices to address these land challenges and find that: Nine options deliver medium to large benefits for all four land challenges. A further two options have no global estimates for adaptation, but have medium to large benefits for all other land challenges. Five options have large mitigation potential (>3 Gt CO2eq/year) without adverse impacts on the other land challenges. Five options have moderate mitigation potential, with no adverse impacts on the other land challenges. Sixteen practices have large adaptation potential (>25 million people benefit), without adverse side effects on other land challenges. Most practices can be applied without competing for available land. However, seven options could result in competition for land. A large number of practices do not require dedicated land, including several land management options, all value chain options, and all risk management options. Four options could greatly increase competition for land if applied at a large scale, though the impact is scale and context specific, highlighting the need for safeguards to ensure that expansion of land for mitigation does not impact natural systems and food security. A number of practices, such as increased food productivity, dietary change and reduced food loss and waste, can reduce demand for land conversion, thereby potentially freeing‐up land and creating opportunities for enhanced implementation of other practices, making them important components of portfolios of practices to address the combined land challenges.

A regional assessment of land‐based carbon mitigation potentials: Bioenergy, BECCS, reforestation, and forest management

“…It should be emphasized that a full assessment of different land management options cannot only consider theoretical carbon mitigation potentials. Importantly, land‐based mitigation efforts should neither jeopardize food security (Smith et al, ) nor trigger indirect land‐use emissions at other locations (Popp, Lakner, Harangi‐Rakos, & Fari, ). Even under optimistic assumptions, only a fraction of the agricultural land will be available for mitigation purposes in reality.…”

“…Consequently, land management as a climate mitigation tool is an active area of current research (e.g. Griscom et al, ; Harper et al, ; Krause et al, ; Lewis, Wheeler, Mitchard, & Koch, ; Luyssaert et al, ; Smith et al, ).…”

Mapping the effectiveness of nature‐based solutions for climate change adaptation

“…Yet, wetlands and grasslands represent globally important carbon stores (Burden, Garbutt, & Evans, 2019;Ward et al, 2016). Grasslands store over 10% of terrestrial biomass carbon (Follett & Reed, 2010), and could sequester one billion tons of carbon annually if sustainably managed (Smith et al, 2020).…”

The impact of interventions in the global land and agri‐food sectors on Nature’s Contributions to People and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

“…Overall, across both categories of SDGs and NCPs, 15 of 40 options that were evaluated deliver at least some co-benefits with no identified negative side effects or trade-offs for the full range of NCPs and SDGs ( Smith et al, 2020), but potentially large negative adaptation effects due to land competition (Dooley & Kartha, 2018;Fuss et al, 2016;Humpenöder et al, 2018) Local seeds tend to be resilient to different climate hazards and thus can enhance adaptation (Louwaars, 2002;Santilli, 2012) SDG 14 Life below water Bioenergy and BECCS will reduce ocean acidification by reducing CO 2 emissions and concentrations (Doney et al, 2009;IPCC, 2018) N/A SDG 15 Life on land Can reduce areas of natural habitat with negative effects on biodiversity (Hof et al, 2018;Immerzeel et al, 2014;IPCC, 2018) Use of commercial seeds can contribute to habitat loss through agricultural expansion and intensification; local seeds likely better (Upreti & Upreti, 2002) SDG 16 Peace and justice and strong institutions N/A Seed sovereignty is positively associated with strong local food movements, which contribute to social capital (Coomes et al, 2015;Grey & Patel, 2015;McMichael & Schneider, 2011) SDG 17 Partnerships to achieve the goal N/A Seed sovereignty could be seen as threat to free trade and imports of genetically modified seeds (Howard, 2015;Kloppenberg, 2010;Kloppenburg, 2014) TA B L E 1 0 (Continued) (Smith et al, 2020). However, of these 16 options, more than half of them (9) do show potential trade-offs with either NCPs or SDGs in our analysis.…”