The World Bank has called for a modification in the global carbon financing mechanism with a view to help agriculture mitigate climate change. It urged the climate negotiators to bring in such a modification when negotiations reopen for drafting a new climate treaty which would replace the Kyoto Protocol on its expiry on 2012.
The bank holds agriculture as a major source of green house gas (GHG) emissions and says that it also has much untapped potential to reduce emissions through forest preservation and changes in land use and agricultural practices.
In its recent World Development Report-2008, the bank said that climate change would have far-reaching consequences for agriculture, which would disproportionately affect the poor. Greater risks of crop failures and livestock deaths have begun causing economic losses and undermining food security and the impact would become more severe as global warming continues.
The report noted that the present Clean Development Mechanism (CMD) under Kyoto Protocol has limited coverage of afforestation and reforestation. It does not have any incentive for forest preservation and preventing deforestation for use of forest land for agriculture. It said that such deforestation has contributed to about a fifth of global GHG emissions.
The World Bank suggested that CMD should include new aspects and explore credits for sequestration of carbon in soils through the process conservation tillage farming. There should be carbon credits for “green” bio-fuels, agro-forestry in agricultural landscapes, changes in land use pattern that sequester carbon, rehabilitation of degraded crop and pasture land, storage and capture technologies for manure, conversion of emissions into bio-gas and incentives for R&D for low emission technologies like new rice varieties and livestock breeds that emit less methane.
The report identified five main factors that would affect farm productivity, namely changes in temperature, precipitation, carbon dioxide fertilization, climate variability and surface water run-off. “Initially, rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide benefit crop growth and could offset yield losses from heat and water stress, but this carbon fertilization may be smaller in practice than previously estimated from experimental data,” it said.
In tropical countries even a moderate rise in temperature by 1 degree Celsius could prove fatal for wheat and maize and a 2 degree Celsius rise can lower rice productivity. The crop productivity in the temperate zone and in many industrial countries would however increase.
But if the temperature increases by 3 degree Celsius, yield loss would be everywhere, more particularly in tropical countries. In parts of Africa, Asia and Central America yields of wheat and maize would decline by 20% to 40% as temperature rises by 3 to 4 degree Celsius. Even assuming farm-level adjustments to higher average temperatures. With full carbon dioxide fertilization, the losses would be about half as large. Decline in rice yields would be lesser than in wheat and maize, the report said.
Agriculture in low-lying coastal areas in some developing countries would also be damaged by flooding and salinisation caused due to sea level rise and salt water intrusions in groundwater aquifers. Lesser precipitation could create problems. Access to perennial surface water may be vulnerable, particularly in the semi-arid regions.
The World Bank, in this context, suggested the urgent need for adaptation to climate change. It however said that the costs of adapting to climate change estimated at tens of billions of dollars in developing countries far exceed the resources available. It would require significant transfers from industrial countries. The contributions to existing adaptation funds were only $130 to $300 million a year, it said.
The report suggested that public sector can facilitate adaptation measures by revenues generated through carbon taxes based on the principle of the polluter pays. Some adaptation measures can be crop and livestock insurance, safety nets, development of new crops, dissemination of weather information, irrigation schemes, contingency planning.
The World Bank quoted sources and said that agriculture accounted for 15% of global GHG emissions. If deforestation in developing countries were to be taken into account the farm sector’s emission would be 26% to 35% of global GHG emissions. Around 80% of the total emissions from agriculture, including deforestation were from developing countries, it said.
Agriculture contributed about half of the global emissions of two of the most potent non-carbon dioxide GHGs ? nitrous oxide emissions from soil due to use of nitrogenous fertilizers and methane from enteric fermentation in livestock production ? each account for about one-third of farm sector’s total non-carbon dioxide emissions. The rest of non-carbon dioxide emissions were from biomass burning, rice production and manure management, the report said.
The bank’s report, however, noted the role of agriculture in mitigation of climate change by way of carbon sequestration said “the quantitative estimates are uncertain.”