Land’s role in the changing climate is complex: Plants and soil act as both sources and sinks of greenhouse emissions—contributing to as well as mitigating climate change at the same time. Climate change, in turn, also impacts land, mostly reducing productivity and creating conditions for additional greenhouse emissions.

This complex interaction between land and climate change is the focus of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report, Climate Change and Land, which was released this month. Taking current global trajectories of land, climate and food systems into consideration, this report recommends various adaptation and mitigation response options that countries can adopt. Most of these options, according to the IPCC, also hold co-benefits for land, food, public health, biodiversity and ecosystems.

Taking average emission trends from 2007 to 2016 into account, the IPCC report found that agriculture, forestry and other forms of land usage were responsible for almost a fourth of the anthropogenic emissions during the period. Within the same time, however, these lands also sequestered approximately one-third of such emissions—mostly in their trees. These calculations show that currently, land absorbs somewhat more greenhouse gases than it emits. With rapidly increasing land pressures, however, we don’t know how long this precarious advantage will last.

With a rising population and decreasing poverty, total consumption in the world is steadily increasing, leading to increased pressure on land for food, space and other resources. This has meant the clearance of emission sequestering forests to make way for crops and livestock—which tend to emit more greenhouse gases than their previous counterparts. Apart from forest clearance, intensive land use has also meant the desertification and degradation of agricultural lands. Additionally, climate change—fueled not only by agriculture but also by industries, vehicles and households—itself also impacts the productivity of forests and agricultural land. These compounding human-induced pressures are severely curtailing the land’s capacity to keep climate change in check.

Implications for Nepal

Land impacts of climate change are more intense in subsistence agricultural economies like Nepal. Climate effects such as erratic rainfall, floods, and landslides have severely impacted crop productivity. Additionally, shifting climatic zones have made local crops less suitable for the available land. It has also given rise to pests and invasives that further hinder their growth. As a result, when enough food cannot be grown on available land, pressures shift to forested areas, resulting in deforestation and forest degradation.

A food-secure and climate-resilient future in Nepal can only be achieved through early implementation of sustainable land management practices that have been outlined in the report. ‘While the IPCC’s land report does not prescribe solutions, it does, however, offer land management and food system options that countries can adopt to generate holistic benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation, food security, public health, and ecosystem & biodiversity preservation’, says Prajal Pradhan, an agro-ecologist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the lead authors of the report’s ‘Food Security’ chapter. ‘One way that Nepal can respond to IPCC’s suggestion is by configuring its food systems—including production, packaging, harvesting, storage, transportation, marketing and consumption—to become more efficient and sustainable’, he adds.

During production, for example, optimised cultivation protocols can be implemented to reduce the environmental footprint. One way to do this is to reduce the emission intensity of food. Emission intensity, which refers to the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of food produced, is especially high for rice and meat production in Nepal. Rice paddies when cultivated in flooded fields, for example, produce copious amounts of methane—a potent greenhouse gas. Cultivating rice using another technique called alternate wetting and drying, however, not only reduces climate impact but also helps conserve water during drought conditions. Other sustainable production options viable in Nepal include using hybrid crop species, agroforestry, improved livestock & grazing management etc.

Additionally, food systems need to be optimised to reduce food loss and waste. Food waste tends to occur less frequently in poor countries—i.e. once food reaches the market it tends to be more or less consumed. Pradhan, however, points out that food losses—which occur during harvesting, packing, storage and transportation—are much higher in such developing countries due to lack of adequate technology.

A sustainable solution to reduce such waste and loss is to consume locally sourced food. Local food production systems would not only reduce unnecessary food waste but would also produce fresher food with little to no preservatives. Additionally, IPCC reports that changing the diet to include locally neglected and underutilised species (for example barley, sorghum, buckwheat, millet etc. in the mountains of Hindu-Kush region) can also aid in climate adaptation and increase food security and biodiversity protection. Additionally, the report also emphasises the need to reduce animal-based food consumption.

The IPCC reports that reforestation, afforestation and preservation of existing forests will have the biggest impact in reducing emissions—and potentially maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services at the same time as well. However, forest management practices need to adapt according to continuously evolving scientific findings, and not resort to haphazard management, to be able to achieve these climate and biodiversity outcomes.

Integrating research, policy and practice

The response options explored in this article show that most sustainable climate action to ensure food security comes with many other co-benefits such as mitigation, and biodiversity and ecosystem gains. However, to ensure that such multiple co-benefits are realised—and adverse side effects and undesirable tradeoffs limited—the report cautions that solutions must be context-specific and take the local land, livelihoods and ecosystem into account.

To achieve this ‘a platform needs to be created where all stakeholders including local farmers, consumers, policymakers and scientists can interact with each other’, says Pradhan. Such two-way interactions will help emerging climate-sensitive policies and practices adapt to local conditions.

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