| Climate Change |
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| We are developing methods to clarify the potential of specific agroforestry systems in specific agroclimatic conditions, and trying to establish how benefits from such mitigation can serve as incentives for smallholder agroforestry. |
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| Lead scientists: Louis Verchot |
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| Despite current efforts to reduce the driving forces of global climate change, the process will not be halted. and for all agro-ecosystems as well as natural systems adaptation to differences in the frequency of ‘extreme events’ as a forebode to changes in average conditions is a must. People differ in their opportunities for such adaptation and the poorest groups with least responsibility for the change are likely to become the main victims. Adaptation research has mainly focussed on situations where the change is predictable in its direction, if not magnitude. Agroforestry can probably play a role in increasing the human resilience to change, also for situations where climate change first of all increases uncertainty and calls for maintaining multiple options. In our research we try to clarify the resource base for processes of ‘adaptation‘. |
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Reduction of net emissions of greenhouse gasses as a means of ‘mitigation’ has to be considered at multiple time scales. Agroforestry is now recognized internationally as having high potential for sequestering carbon as part of a short-to-medium term mitigation strategy. While the basic research on carbon sequestration rates is directly linked to our understanding of tree growth rates and long term changes in soil conditions, the toolbox of methods is still needed to clarify the potential of specific agroforestry systems in specific agro-climatic conditions. The main question is, however, how the benefits that derive from such mitigation to external stakeholders (countries with a specific obligation to reduce their net emissions) can be used to provide positive incentives to smallholder agroforesters without invoking an administrative structure that will lead to high ‘transaction costs’.
Climate Change Website. |
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| Results Chain for Climate Change for 2005-2015 |
Goal: Agroforestry systems contribute simultaneously to buffering farmers against climate variability and changing climates, and to reducing atmospheric loads of greenhouse gases.
Indicator: Farmers in priority areas suffer lower levels of weather related crop failure through the expansion of agroforestry systems in multi-functional landscape mosaics. Net greenhouse gas emissions from agroforestry systems are lower per unit of economic productivity than other agricultural intensification options. |
| Outputs |
Indicators of outputs |
Outcomes |
Indicators of outcomes |
Impacts |
Indicators of Impacts |
| Validated management principles useful for climate change planning and policy in priority areas.
Validated estimates for on-farm emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture under alternative models of agricultural development.
Successful environmental service projects in priority areas in all regions.
Capacity building in the areas of adaptation to climate change. |
Synthesis papers and volumes published and disseminated; research and policy briefs published and disseminated.
Partnerships developed and scientists participating in the implementation of pilot mitigation projects.
Policy makers use results from scientific studies to support the development of adaptation policy and negotiation positions. |
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and national environment plans facilitate smallholder agroforestry as a mitigation and adapatation mechanism.
Mitigation and adaptation programmes in developing countries reflect the contirbuions of smallholder agroforestry. |
Content of conventions and environment action plans.
Number of mitigation and adaptation projects that incorporate agroforestry as a valiable option. |
Smallholder agroforestry projects sequester globally significant amounts of carbon and offset globally significant amounts of non-renewable energy.
Agroforestry systems allow vulnerable smallholder farmers to better cope with climate change. |
Numbers of farmers expanding agroforestry and corresponding mitigation effects from additional agroforestry projects. | |
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| Sources of knowledge about agroforestry and environmental services |
| The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by the World Meterological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC Third Assessment Report on Climate Change (2001) contains an endorsement of the potential for agroforestry to contribute to increased carbon stocks in agricultural lands: “Agroforestry can both sequester carbon and produce a range of economic, environmental, and socioeconomic benefits. For example, trees in agroforestry farms improve soil fertility through control of erosion, maintenance of soil organic matter and physical properties, increased N, extraction of nutrients from deep soil horizons, and promotion of more closed nutrient cycling.” (Section 4.4.1 of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on Mitigation, 2001). The Clean Development Mechanism, and associated voluntary mechanisms such as the World Bank BioCarbon Fund, provide opportunities for financing two types of agroforestry projects: replacing non-renewable energy sources with renewable production of biomass or biodiesel, and storing carbon in agroforestry systems. A small number of private companies, such as the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management and EnviroTrade, are exploring the potential for smallholder agroforestry to earn carbon credits. Much of the basic information needed to design such projects remains unknown. Inter-governmental organizations such as UNEP and research institutions in Europe, Latin America and South Asia are starting to explore that potential. |
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| Given recent scientific certainty that global climate change is already starting to occur, there has recently been some shift in emphasis from mitigation to adaptation to climate change. Agroforestry systems might be affected by climate change in several ways – seedling survival, growth rates, fruiting, pests and pollinators. Once established, some agroforestry system, such as rotational intercrops, may help farmers to buffer the effects of climate change. At this point, however, very little is known about the buffering capacity of agroforestry systems and how climate change will interact with the other risks that face smallholder farmers. |
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