Land usage and agriculture

Leveraging potential for climate change mitigation

The IPCC estimates that roughly a quarter of all global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are caused by agriculture, forestry and other land-use changes. At the same time, climate change is also causing extreme weather events such as drought and flooding, which are extremely harmful to agriculture. This, in turn, threatens the livelihoods of the less fortunate population groups in rural areas.

The importance of agriculture for land usage, together with its major potential for mitigation and adaptation has become a matter of intense international interest since the IPCC’s publication of its Special Report in August 2019. The livelihoods of farming communities need to be secured in the long term with resilient and intact ecosystems. While at the same time, sustainable agriculture by increasing humus content or shade tree planting, for example also has a key role to play in climate change mitigation.

Landscape-based approaches

The International Climate Initiative (IKI) is providing targeted approach to countries who are using landscape-based approaches to balance out competing land usage interests. These approaches take both human wellbeing and an intact environment into account. As a result, the effectiveness of these ecosystems is retained or restored, as appropriate. In addition, forests also play an important part in many projects aimed at ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA).

Agroforestry systems

The IKI is also utilising the great potential of agroforestry systems (AFS) for mitigation and adaptation.The initiative is financing projects that support the development of sustainable value chains for agroforestry systems such as cocoa or coffee, for example. Unlike monocultures, biodiverse agroforestry systems exhibit greater ecological sustainability, as they require fewer chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilisers or indeed none at all. These systems also offer a wide range of ‘co-benefits’, such as carbon sequestration, income diversification, pest control and an increase in soil moisture. IKI projects also advice governments in partner countries on how to ensure the institutionalisation of agroforestry systems over the long term.