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The Role of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Paper prepared under the TerrAfrica Work Program John Pender*, Frank Place**, Claudia Ringler* and Marilia Magalhaes* * International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ** World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) April 2009 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Climate change and land degradation are major threats to the survival and livelihoods of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Major new opportunities exist to help improve the livelihoods of African smallholder farmers, pastoralists and other resource users while mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases, reducing land degradation and addressing other environmental problems in the context of the current negotiations to develop a post-Kyoto climate change framework, and international, national and local efforts to promote sustainable land management (SLM) and conserve biodiversity. This paper seeks to help address these threats and achieve the potential of these opportunities by informing policy makers, development practitioners, and others concerned about these issues about the linkages between climate change and SLM, the opportunities and constraints to promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM, and the policy and institutional options to overcome the constraints and realize the opportunities that are now or are becoming available. This paper was prepared by researchers of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) as part of the TerrAfrica work program, with the support of the World Bank. The research team was supported by a Special Advisory Group (SAG) that included representatives of African governments, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the government of Norway, and Ecoagriculture Partners. The SAG provided valuable information and references that were used in the paper, as well as feedback on the outline and first draft of the paper. The authors also drew heavily upon the draft issues paper “Land Management and Climate Change” by Christophe Crepin and Frank Sperling of the World Bank. The authors are grateful to the World Bank for financial support of the research; to Christophe Crepin, Frank Sperling and Florence Richard for their leadership and guidance; and to the members of the SAG for providing valuable information, advice and feedback. In addition to the aforementioned, the following individual provided specific comments on early draft versions of the paper: Elizabeth Bryan, Saveis Sadeghian, Alejandro Kilpatrick , Elsie Attafuah, Evariste Nicoletis, Francois Tapsoba, Kwame Awere, Paule Herodote, Simone Quatrini, Sven Walter and Sara Scherr. Martin Bwale, Elijah Phiri, Odd Arnesen and Dominique Lantieri provided additional guidance. The authors are solely responsible for any errors or omissions that remain. Table of Contents Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... i 1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................1 2. The Challenge of Climate Variability and Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa ................4 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3. Climate Variability in Sub-Saharan Africa ...................................................................... 4 The Impact of Climate Change on Sub-Saharan Africa ................................................... 5 The Role of Extreme Events ............................................................................................ 5 Land Use Change and Climate Change............................................................................ 6 Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa .... 8 The role of Sustainable Land Management in Sub-Saharan Africa .......................................11 3.1 3.2 Land Degradation in sub-Saharan Africa ....................................................................... 11 Sustainable Land Management under Climate Change ................................................. 17 4. Policies and Strategies to Promote Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in SSA through SLM ............................................................................................................................................27 4.1. Existing Policies and Strategies Related to Climate Change and SLM ............................. 27 4.2. Opportunities and Constraints to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change through SLM .. 43 4.3. Options to Address Opportunities and Constraints to Climate Mitigation and Adaptation through SLM in SSA ................................................................................................................. 64 5. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................75 References ....................................................................................................................................102 List of Tables Table 2-1. Regional averages of temperature increases in Africa from a set of 21 global models ............................................................................................................................................81 Table 2-2. Projected mean temperature increases in African countries ........................................82 Table 2-3. Regional averages of change in rainfall in Africa from a set of 21 global models .....83 Table 2-4. Transition matrix of changes in environmental constraints to crop agriculture of land in sub-Saharan Africa.............................................................................................................83 Table 2-5. Severe environmental constraints for rain-fed crop production ..................................84 Table 2-6. Percentage of land with severe versus slight or no constraints for reference climate and maximum and minimum values occurring in four GCM climate projections ..........84 Table 3-1. The extent of land degradation and its effects in sub-Saharan Africa .........................85 Table 3-2. Importance of causes of degraded lands by continent .................................................86 Table 3-3. Examples of sustainable land management practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation ...............................................................................................................87 Table 3-4. Mitigation potential of alternative land management practices on soil carbon ...........89 Table 4-1. Carbon markets, volumes, and values ..........................................................................90 Table 4-2. Estimated economic mitigation potential by agricultural and land management practices in Africa ..........................................................................................................................90 Table 4-3. Estimated economic mitigation potential by agricultural and land management practices in Africa ..........................................................................................................................91 Table 4-4. Summary of progress during 2007 in Phase 2 TerrAfrica countries ............................92 List of Figures Figure 2-1. Number of flood events per decade, by continent......................................................93 Figure 2-2. Total Number of People Affected by Droughts in Africa. 1964-2005 .......................93 Figure 2-3. Projected increases in rainfall from 1961-90 to 2070-99 ...........................................94 Figure 2-4. Changes in sub-Saharan land with no or slight environmental constraints . ..............94 Figure 2-5. Probabilistic projections of production impacts in 2030 from climate change . .........95 Figure 3-1. NDVI based estimates of land degradation in sub-saharan Africa in 2003 ...............96 Figure 3-2. Effect of improved land management and climate change on crop yields ................97 Figure 3-3. Greenhouse gas emission sources by location ...........................................................98 Figure 4-1. Potential size of REDD payments ..............................................................................99 Figure 4-2. Potential savings by 2030 from mitigation options in agriculture ...........................100 Figure 4-3. Income potential from REDD payments vs. governance indices ............................101 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AEZ AFOLU AGRA A/R BSAP CAADP CBD CCX CDCF CDM CEEPA CER CGIAR CIF CILSS CSIF CSIRO CTF DfID DNA DOE EAP EC ERU EU FCPF FIP GCCA GDP GEF GFDRR GGAS GHG GLASOD ICRISAT IGAD Agro-ecological zone Agriculture, forestry and other land uses Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa Afforestation or reforestation Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program Convention on Biological Diversity Chicago Climate Exchange Community Development Carbon Fund Clean Development Mechanism Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa Certified Emissions Reductions Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research Climate Investment Funds Institute of the Sahel of the Interstate Committee of the Sahelian Countries Country Strategic Investment Framework Commonwealth Scientific Industrial and Research Organization Clean Technology Fund Department for International Development Designated National Authority Designated Operational Entity Environment Action Plan European Community Emission Reduction Unit European Union Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Forest Investment Program Global Climate Change Alliance Gross Domestic Product Global Environment Facility Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme Greenhouse Gases Global Land Assessment of Degradation International Crop Research Institute of the Semi-Arid Tropics Intergovernmental Authority for Development IPCC ISDR JI lCER LDCF LULUCF LGP MEA NAP NAPA NARS NCAR NDVI NEPAD NGO NSW ODA OTC PoA PPCR RAP REC REDD SCCR SCF SLM SLWM SIP SRAP SRE SRES SSA tCER UNCCD UNCED UNCTAD UNDP UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Joint Implementation Long-term Certified Emissions Reductions Least Developed Countries Fund Land use, land use change and Forestry Length of growing period Multilateral Environmental Agreement National Action Programme of the UNCCD National Adaptation Programme of Action of the UNFCCC National agricultural research system National Center for Atmospheric Research Normalized Difference Vegetative index New Partnership for Africa’s Development Non-governmental organization New South Wales Official Development Assistance Over the counter Programme of Activities Pilot Program for Climate Resilience Regional Action Programme Regional Economic Communities Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Special Climate Change Fund Strategic Climate Fund Sustainable land management Sustainable land and water management Strategic Investment Program Sub-regional Action Programmes Scaling up Renewable Energy Special Report on Emissions Scenarios Sub-Saharan Africa Temporary Certified Emissions Reductions United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification United Nations Conference on Environment and Development United Nations Conference on Trade and Development United Nations Development Program United Nations Environment Programme UNFCCC USD VCS WRI United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United States Dollar Voluntary Carbon Standard World Resources Institute EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Coping with climate variability is a major challenge for the people of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The high dependence of the economies and rural people of SSA upon rainfed agriculture, the prevalence of poverty and food insecurity, and limited development of institutional and infrastructural capacities in this region make coping with natural climate variability a perennial challenge. In the past several decades, the number of extreme weather events in particular subregions and the number of people affected by droughts and floods have grown dramatically. This challenge is being magnified by global climate change in most of SSA. Many climate models predict negative impacts of climate change on agricultural production and food security in large parts of SSA. Higher temperatures throughout all of SSA will cause shorter growing periods, drying of the soil, increased pest and disease pressure, and shifts in suitable areas for growing crops and livestock. Mean rainfall is predicted by most models to decline in many areas of SSA, especially in southern Africa, while rainfall is more likely to increase in parts of eastern and central Africa and predictions are more variable in western Africa. Beyond the impacts on mean trends, climate change is expected to cause more extreme weather events. Even in many areas where rainfall is expected to increase, higher temperatures will reduce growing periods. These changes are predicted to reduce the area of land suitable for rainfed agriculture by 6% (averaged across several projections), and reduce total agricultural GDP in Africa by 2 to 9%. Agricultural losses are expected to be as much as 50% in southern Africa during drought years. These problems can exacerbate and be exacerbated by land degradation. Severe land degradation – caused mainly by conversion of forests, woodlands and bush lands to agriculture, overgrazing of rangelands, unsustainable agricultural practices on croplands, and excessive exploitation of natural habitats – is reducing primary productivity on as much as 20% of the land in SSA, with the most severe impacts in drylands and forest margins. Climate variability and change can contribute to land degradation by exposing unprotected soil to more extreme conditions and straining the capacity of existing land management practices to maintain resource quality, contributing to de-vegetation, soil erosion, depletion of organic matter and other forms of degradation. These changes can cause land management practices that were sustainable under other climate conditions to become unsustainable, and induce more rapid conversion of forest or i rangeland to unsustainable agricultural uses. At the same time, land degradation increases the vulnerability of agricultural production and rural people to extreme weather events and climate change, as the fertility and buffering capacities of the land and livelihood assets are depleted. Land degradation is not an inevitable result of climate variability and change, however. Much depends upon how land resource users respond to climate changes. Climate change can offer new opportunities for productive and sustainable land management (SLM) practices, such as reforestation, improved water management, integrated soil fertility management, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, improved rangeland management and others as a result of changing biophysical or market conditions. New opportunities for SLM are arising from regulations and emerging markets to mitigate global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) practices in SSA can play an important role in mitigating GHG emissions by reducing agricultural emissions of GHG and sequestering carbon in vegetation, litter and soils. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that improved agricultural and land management practices in SSA, including improved cropland and grazing land management, restoration of peaty soils, restoration of degraded land and other practices, could reduce GHG emissions by 265 Mt CO2e per year by 2030 (at opportunity costs of up to $20 per tCO2e). Afforestation in Africa could sequester 665 Mt CO2 per year, while reduced deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in Africa could reduce emissions by 1,260 Mt CO2e in 2030 (at opportunity costs of up to $100 per tCO2). These potential emission reductions in Africa represent about 6.5% of global GHG emissions in 2000; a substantial potential impact even if it would not solve the climate problem by itself. If payments for these carbon mitigation services were available, this could also provide large flows of funds (more than $10 billion per year if only half of the potential reductions were achieved) to help promote SLM activities in Africa. SLM can also reduce vulnerability and help people adapt to climate variability and change. For example, farmers in the Ethiopian highlands report investing in soil and water conservation measures as their most common response to declining rainfall. Many SLM practices can simultaneously achieve both adaptation and mitigation goals, especially those that increase soil ii organic carbon. SLM represents a preventative approach to climate change that can reduce the need for costly ex post coping measures, like changing crops and livelihoods, clearing new lands for agriculture and migration. The predicted negative yield impacts of climate change are often dwarfed by proven positive yield impacts of improved land management. In addition to positive impacts on average yields, many SLM practices reduce the variability of agricultural production (for example, soil and water conservation and organic practices that improve soil moisture holding capacity or integrated pest management practices that reduce vulnerability to pests), while others can help to diversify agricultural income (for example, agroforestry with non-timber tree products or crop rotations). A combination of SLM practices can be used to combat the different manifestations of climate change. Despite the large potential for SLM to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation in SSA, little of this potential is currently being realized. SLM practices are adopted on only a small percentage of agricultural land in SSA. Degradation of agricultural land and expansion of agriculture into forests, woodlands and bush land are continuing at a rapid pace. There are many policy frameworks, strategies, institutions and programs to promote climate mitigation and adaptation through SLM in SSA, but the impacts of these are so far quite limited. Among the potentially most important mechanisms are the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the voluntary carbon market, various climate mitigation and adaptation funds, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), TerrAfrica, and regional, sub-regional and national policy processes linked to these. Current use of these mechanisms is very limited: Among AFOLU measures, the CDM allows only afforestation and reforestation (A/R) projects, but only 10 A/R projects in SSA are in the CDM pipeline. No offsets are supplied to the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) by SLM projects in SSA, and only about 0.2 MtCO2e were offset through other voluntary transactions involving land management in SSA in 2007. iii Many carbon mitigation funds have been established, but most do not support AFOLU activities in SSA. National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) have been developed by most African countries, but implementation has been limited by funding and other constraints. Several adaptation funds have been established, but they are small compared to the total need, and access to these funds in SSA has been very limited so far. Implementation of National Action Programmes of the UNCCD has also been limited by funding constraints and other factors. NEPAD’s CAADP and TerrAfrica are working in partnership to promote upscaling of SLM in Africa, with increasing focus on climate change mitigation and adaption. TerrAfrica has mobilized $150 million in funds that are expected to leverage an additional $1 billion to support this goal. CAADP and TerrAfrica are working with African governments to develop and support Country Strategic Investment Frameworks (CSIFs) for SLM. Integrating strategies and programs to promote SLM and address climate change with each other and with national development strategies and policies is a major challenge. Addressing this challenge is a major emphasis of the CSIFs. There are opportunities to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM in SSA through existing mechanisms. In the present context, the opportunities include increased use of the CDM to finance A/R projects; increased use of voluntary carbon markets and carbon mitigation funds to test and demonstrate methodologies for a wider range of AFOLU activities; increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities prioritized by African governments; increased funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation through programs promoting SLM in Africa; and increased integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, including SLM, into development strategies of African governments and donors. Many challenges and constraints may prevent realization of these opportunities. The main constraints to expanded use of the CDM to support SLM in the present framework include CDM eligibility restrictions; high transactions costs of registering and certifying CDM projects; low prices for certified emissions reductions (CERs), especially for A/R projects; long time lags in achieving CERs; uncertainty about the benefits of projects and the future of the CDM; and land iv tenure insecurity in many African contexts. These constraints are exacerbated by the limited technical, financial and organizational capacities of key actors in SSA. Many of the same constraints apply to supporting AFOLU investments through voluntary and other compliance carbon markets, although to a lesser degree in some cases. Constraints to increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities for climate adaptation include the limited size of these funds; lack of coordination among key government ministries; lack of technical and human capacity to implement adaptation activities; and others. Major new opportunities may arise as a result of development of a cap and trade system in the United States and inclusion of REDD and a broader set of AFOLU activities in the post Kyoto climate framework. Prospects for a U.S. cap and trade system have substantially improved as a result of the election of 2008, although passage of such a system or U.S. ratification of a post Kyoto treaty is by no means assured. The 2007 Bali Plan of Action of the UNFCCC urges consideration of REDD payments in the post-Kyoto framework, and many proposals for such schemes have been tabled by Parties to the convention and others. Proposals for expanding the eligible AFOLU activities in the post-Kyoto framework are also being suggested, although the UNFCCC has not taken a formal decision to consider those. There are many uncertainties, challenges and constraints to realizing these new opportunities as well. Challenges to U.S. participation in the global carbon market include the political challenge of achieving ratification of a post-Kyoto treaty; concerns about the effectiveness and risks of emissions reductions purchased from developing countries; and possible opposition by U.S. lobby groups to offset payments to foreign land users. Challenges to REDD payments include the technical difficulties and costs of defining baselines and assuring additionality; concerns about leakages; potential adverse incentives caused by such payments; concerns about the fairness of paying countries with a poor record of protecting forests and not paying those that have protected their forests; possible negative impacts on poor people, especially where they have insecure land and forest tenure; and concerns about flooding the carbon market with cheap offsets. Many of the same challenges will affect payments for AFOLU activities. Many of these concerns are likely to be less problematic than for REDD payments, except the size of transaction costs relative to the value of payments per hectare. Given the low payments per hectare possible for many AFOLU activities, projects will need to v focus on promoting profitable AFOLU activities by addressing other constraints to adoption, such as lack of technical, financial and organizational capacity. Based on this review, we have identified eight options to help take advantage of the opportunities and overcome the constraints to increased use of SLM in SSA to mitigate and adapt to climate change: 1. Advocate improvements in the post-Kyoto agreement that address these opportunities and constraints, including o Expanding eligibility in the CDM to include all activities that sequester carbon or reduce emissions of GHGs, including REDD and AFOLU activities; o Agreeing to national targets for GHG levels of developing countries, and use a full GHG national accounting approach to credit reductions relative to baselines (approach could be pilot tested in a few countries and for a specific set of activities first); and o 2. Increasing funding for adaptation measures. Simplify and improve the procedures to access funds under the CDM, adaptation funds and other relevant funds. 3. Explore existing opportunities to increase participation in voluntary carbon markets. 4. Expand knowledge generation and outreach efforts on the problems of climate variability and change, land degradation, their linkages, and options for solution. 5. Improve coordination of efforts to address climate and land degradation and integration with key government strategies and processes. 6. Expand investment in strengthening technical, organizational and human capacity relevant to climate and land management issues in SSA. 7. Engage community leaders, farmers and other resource users in program and project development. 8. Address specific policy, institutional and other constraints to SLM and climate change mitigation and adaptation at national and local level in the context of Country Strategic Investment Frameworks (CSIFs). vi To achieve success in the first two options, it will be quite important for stakeholders concerned about SLM issues in SSA, including African governments, the UNCCD, NEPAD, the TerrAfrica partnership, and civil society organizations to be actively involved in advocating a continuation of the CDM, inclusion of AFOLU and REDD projects in the CDM, and expansion of adaptation funds. The remaining options are not closely bound to the UNFCCC process, and can be addressed within the context of the NEPAD/CAADP and TerrAfrica process to develop CSIFs for SLM in each country. To achieve effective synergies with climate change issues in these processes, it will be important to involve key stakeholders from the climate change community in these processes, where they are not yet involved. vii 1. Introduction Climate variability and change are major threats for developing countries, especially for the people of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The high dependence of the economies and rural people of SSA upon rainfed agriculture, the prevalence of poverty and food insecurity, and limited development of institutional and infrastructural capacities in this region make coping with natural climate variability a perennial challenge. This challenge is being magnified by global climate change, which is predicted by many models to have some of the most negative impacts on agricultural production in tropical and sub-tropical regions, and especially in parts of SSA (Cline 2007; Lobell et al. 2008). Higher temperatures throughout SSA are causing increased evapotranspiration, shorter growing periods, drying of the soil, increased pest and disease pressure, shifts in suitable areas for growing crops and livestock, and other problems for agriculture. Climate change is also expected to cause increased variability of rainfall in much of SSA, and increased intensity and frequency of extreme events, including droughts, floods, and storms. Concerted and effective responses by governments, civil society, the private sector, communities and individuals are necessary to address the challenges posed by climate variability and change. At the global level, much emphasis has been placed to date on mitigating climate change caused by emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) through international actions to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), particularly through the Kyoto Protocol, as well as other government and private mitigation initiatives. Despite these actions, it is now widely recognized that it is unlikely that levels of GHG can be kept low enough to avoid significant adverse impacts from global warming. As a result, the need to adapt to climate change is increasingly recognized as well, although less progress has been made toward international action to address this need. Many actions are needed to mitigate and adapt to climate variability and change. At a global level, most mitigation activities have focused on reducing emissions of GHG through improvements in the energy efficiency of industrial activities. Few of these activities have been in SSA, given the low level of industrialization of this region. Large economic potential also exists to help mitigate climate change through activities related to agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU), such as afforestation and reforestation, avoiding deforestation and forest 1 degradation, soil and biomass carbon sequestration through improved cropland and rangeland management and restoring degraded lands, and reduced GHG emissions through improved management of livestock and manure, paddy production, and nitrogenous fertilizer. SSA could contribute substantially to climate change mitigation through such activities. However, these potentials are so far mostly untapped, largely because most of these activities are not eligible for certified emissions reduction credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, the largest carbon market for developing countries. Other major constraints include the substantial challenges related to the feasibility and costs of establishing, monitoring and verifying emissions reductions through projects related to such dispersed, small-scale activities. Overcoming these constraints requires carbon markets to agree upon and accept simple standards for measuring GHG offsets, and the development of institutions to monitor and enforce small-scale activities. Many of the mitigation actions related to agriculture, forestry and land can also help people to adapt to climate change. For example, agroforestry activities can increase farmers’ agricultural productivity and income security by improving soil fertility, reducing vulnerability to drought, and helping to diversify income sources, while also sequestering carbon. Water harvesting, soil and water conservation measures, conservation agriculture, organic soil fertility management and other sustainable land and water management practices can have similar income and resilience enhancing impacts, and would also increase carbon sequestration and thus reduce GHG emissions. Recognition of the potential of such land and water management practices to help rural people adapt to climate change is increasing, as evidenced by the fact that such measures are prioritized by almost all of the National Adaptation Programmes of Action adopted in the region. Sustainable land management (SLM) measures are also essential to address problems of land degradation and associated poverty and food insecurity, as prioritized by all countries that have ratified the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and to protect and preserve biodiversity, as prioritized under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Hence, there is potential to pursue several critical objectives synergistically through promotion of SLM in SSA, helping to mitigate and adapt to climate change while reducing land degradation, conserving biodiversity, and reducing poverty and food insecurity. 2 The objectives of this report are to i) review the evidence on climate variability and change and land degradation in SSA, ii) assess the potential for sustainable land management (SLM) approaches to help mitigate and adapt to these problems, iii) consider the policies and institutional strategies being used to promote mitigation and adaptation (emphasizing those relevant to SLM in SSA), and iv) identify key opportunities and constraints affecting these policies and strategies, and options to help improve their effectiveness. The next three sections of the paper address each of these objectives, while the final section concludes. In each section, we highlight the key messages at the outset of the section, followed by detailed discussion of these points. 3 2. The Challenge of Climate Variability and Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa Key messages SSA is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. o The impacts of climate variability have increased in SSA in recent decades, and are expected to continue to do so as a result of climate change. o The impacts of climate change on future land use, agriculture and food security are predicted to be negative throughout much of Africa, as a result of rising temperatures everywhere, and declining and more variable rainfall in many locations. These impacts will exacerbate and be exacerbated by widespread land degradation in SSA. 2.1 Climate Variability in Sub-Saharan Africa The frequency and intensity of climate-related natural disasters have increased in SSA since the 1960s. While trends in the frequency of droughts are not readily discernible for all of SSA, floods are increasingly common (Figure 2-1) (Gautam 2006). Although there are no Africa-wide trends in the frequency of droughts, their impact – as indicated by the number of people affected by droughts – shows a strongly increasing trend (Figure 2-2). During 1960-2006, the majority of droughts in SSA occurred in East and West Africa with an increasing trend in the frequency of droughts in East Africa and a declining trend in West Africa. East Africa accounted for more than 70 percent of all people affected by drought during 1964-2006 in SSA, with Ethiopians being the most affected (39 percent of all affected) (Ibid.). 4 2.2 The Impact of Climate Change on Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa will be strongly affected by climate change. In fact, the increased trend in natural disasters mentioned above is likely in part a response to a warmer climate1. The region is particularly vulnerable to climate change because of its dependence on rainfed agriculture for both food and income, and high poverty and malnutrition levels. Modeling studies indicate that the African continent is already warmer today than it was a 100 years ago (Hulme, et al. 2001) and that it will continue to warm throughout this century (Christensen et al. 2007; Cline 2007; Hulme et al. 2001). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) predicts that temperature increases will exceed the expected global mean increase of 2.5oC in all regions of SSA (Table 2-1) (Christensen et al., 2007). Furthermore, warming is expected to be more intense in the interior semi-arid tropical margins of the Sahara and central southern Africa (Hulme, et al. 2001). Cline (2007) projects mean temperature increases of 3-4 oC by the end of the 21st century for most individual countries in the region (Table 2-2). Some of these temperatures may well exceed the optimal temperature for agriculture for some key food crops in the region. Predictions of climate change impacts for precipitation patterns are much less certain and consistent across models (Hulme et al. 2001; Boko et al. 2007). Generally, dry areas are expected to get drier and wet areas are likely to become wetter (IPCC AR4 2007). Rainfall is likely to decrease in much of the winter rainfall region in South Africa and in the western margins of Southern Africa. In East Africa, mean rainfall is likely to increase—but most of the additional rainfall may fall on the sea, and not on land (see Funk et al. 2008). In the Sahel, the Guinean Coast and the southern Sahara, it is uncertain how rainfall will evolve in this century. Overall, the subtropics are likely to get drier and the tropics are likely to see an increase or little change in precipitation (Table 2-3, Figure 2-3) (Christensen et al. 2007; Cline 2007) . 2.3 The Role of Extreme Events Easterling et al. (2007) cite several recent studies that project increased frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, which will have more serious consequences for food 1 According to Conway et al. (2008), robust identification and attribution of hydrological change is severely limited by poor data, conflicting behavior across basins/regions, low signal-to-noise ratios, sometimes weak rainfall-runoff relationships and limited assessment of the magnitude and potential effects of land use and cover change or other anthropogenic influences (p. 24). 5 production and food security for SSA than projected changes in mean climate temperature and precipitation, given the high dependence of the region on rainfed agriculture. Climate variability, particularly severe droughts, has been directly linked to declines in economic activity (measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), whereas gradual increase in mean temperature has not yet been linked to changes in GDP (Brown et al. 2008). The Sahel region, one of the poorest regions of the world with large semi-arid areas, will likely be among the most impacted by climate extremes. However, there is still limited information on the predicted incidence of future extreme events (Boko et al. 2007). While some studies link Indian Ocean warming to drought in the Sahel and expect a drier Sahel over the next 100 years (Held et al. 2005; Tschakert 2007), others suggest that a warmer North Atlantic Ocean since the 1990s has been the reason for the Sahel’s recent swing from drought to moist conditions, and that this trend will continue with a Sahel monsoon 20-30 percent wetter by 2049 compared to the 1950-99 average (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) 2005). Given the high vulnerability of the Sahel combined with high uncertainty regarding future climate outcomes, it will be crucial to devise robust adaptation strategies that are (cost)-effective under the full range of expected climate outcomes. Given the larger agreement on rainfall outcomes for Eastern Africa (but see also Funk et al. 2008) it should be easier to develop appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies for this region. 2.4 Land Use Change and Climate Change 2.4.1 Climate change impacts on land use change Climate change is expected to increase the area of drylands in SSA and hence reduce the area suited to intensive agriculture. According to Nellemann et al. (2009) past soil erosion in Africa might have generated yield reductions from 2-40 percent, compared to a global average of 1-8 percent. If nutrient depletion continues in Sub-Saharan Africa, about 950,000 km2 of land is threatened by irreversible degradation in that region. Studies project that in SSA, constraint-free prime land will decrease while land with severe constraints is likely to increase under global warming. Fischer et al. (2002) project the impacts of climate change on agriculture in SSA by using twelve climate projections of SRES scenarios simulated by four GCM groups (Hadley Centre, Commonwealth Scientific Industrial 6 and Research Organization (CSIRO), Canadian Climate Centre, and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)). In 11 out of 12 GCM climate projections, land with no or only slight constraints decreases while in 10 out of 12 projections land with severe climate, soil, or terrain constraints (prohibiting use for rainfed agriculture) increases. Agro-ecological zone (AEZ) simulations predict an expansion of land with severe climate, soil or terrain constraints in SSA, by 30-60 million hectares, in addition to the 1.5 billion hectares already unfit for rainfed agriculture under current climate (Fischer et al. 2005). For the SRES A2 scenario, for instance, ‘good’ land (sum of suitable and very suitable land) decreases for all four GCM climate projections considered, by an average of 6 percent of total Sub-Saharan prime land, ranging from 8.2 million hectares (NCAR-PCM) to 27.3 million hectares (CSIRO). On the other hand, land with severe climate, soil or terrain constraints, increases in the majority of climate projection considered, in the range of 26-61 million hectares. Table 2-4 shows that out of 15.1 million km2 of land facing severe constraints under the reference climate, only 80,000 km2 are expected to improve with climate change while more than 650,000 km2 of land considered moderately constrained, slightly constrained or unconstrained for agriculture are predicted to face severe environmental constraints by the 2080s due to climate change. All regions of Africa are likely to experience increases in severe environmental constraints for rainfed crop production according to HadCM3-A1F1 projections for 2080. Northern, Southern and Western Africa already contain most of the land that is too dry for rainfed production. These regions are predicted to face increases in the share of area too dry for rainfed cultivation from 88%, 59% and 51% during 1961-1992 to 95%, 79% and 54% by 2080, respectively (Table 2-5). Moreover, model scenarios project a decrease in land area with no constraints or only slight constraints for all regions of Africa, with the Southern region expecting to see a decrease of up to 90% according to the most pessimistic scenarios (Table 2-6) (Fischer, Shah, and Van Velthuizen 2002). Figure 2-4 shows that land suitability for rainfed agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa decreases with the increase of atmospheric CO2 across different scenarios. 2.4.2 Land use change impacts on climate Available global climate models poorly replicate present and past rainfall variability in Africa. Many global climate models do not consider the effects of El Niño events on climate variability or the effects of changes in land covers, vegetation feedbacks and feedbacks from dust aerosol 7 production in Africa and other regions (Hulme et al. 2001; Christensen et al. 2007). However, the importance of land-cover change in altering regional climate in Africa has long been suggested (Hulme et al. 2001). Different studies indicate that vegetation patterns help shape the climatic zones of Africa and, changes in vegetation result in alteration of surface properties and the efficiency of ecosystem exchange of water, energy and CO2 with the atmosphere (Christensen et al. 2007). As a result of these limitations, available climate models might underestimate the impacts of global warming in regions facing land degradation and reduction in the vegetation cover. Among the regions of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of land degradation (World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 2005). In Africa, land degradation affects 67 percent of total land area with 25 percent characterized as severe and very severely degraded and 4 to 7 percent as non-reclaimable. Some of the countries that have the worst rates of soil degradation are: Rwanda and Burundi (57 percent), Burkina Faso (38 percent), Lesotho (32 percent), Madagascar (31 percent), Togo and Nigeria (28 percent), Niger and South Africa (27 percent) and Ethiopia (25 percent) (Bwalya et al. 2009). Defries (2002) estimates that land cover change, such as continued deforestation expected to occur in the tropics and subtropics will have a warming effect as a result of reduced carbon assimilation. 2.5 Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to face the largest challenges regarding food security as a result of climate change and other drivers of global change (Easterling et al. 2007). Overall, Fischer et al. (2005) estimate that as a result of climate change, agricultural GDP in Africa is expected to fall by between -2 to -8 percent (HadCM3 and CGCM2) and -7 to -9 percent (CSIRO model) (Fischer et al. 2005). Many farmers in Africa are likely to experience net revenue losses as a result of climate change, particularly as a result of increased variability and extreme events. Dryland farmers, especially the poorest ones, are expected to be severely affected. Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn (2006) estimated that a 10 percent increase in temperature will lead to a loss in net revenues per hectare, on average, of 8.2 percent for rainfed production. On the other hand, irrigated farmers are likely to have slight gains in productivity (as higher 8 temperatures support yield growth in most of Africa as long as sufficient water is available), which suggests that irrigation might be an effective adaptation strategy2. Output from 20 GCMs shows that many food crops in Southern Africa will be negatively affected without adaptation (Lobell et al. 2008). During extreme El Niño years (drought years), productivity in southern Africa is expected to drop by 20 to 50 percent, with maize being the crop most drastically affected (Stige et al. 2006). Crops and regions likely to be particularly adversely affected from climate change include: maize and wheat in Southern Africa, groundnuts in West Africa and wheat in the Sahel (Lobell et al. 2008). Fischer et al. (2005) even suggest that by 2080 suitable land for wheat might completely disappear in Africa. However, these predictions do not take into account improvements in crop technologies and changes in farm management practices, and thus might overestimate adverse impacts. On the other hand, these predictions likely underestimate the potential impacts of extreme events, including storms, fires, and floods, and are not well suited to model the long-term effect of droughts on river flows and groundwater availability. According to Fischer et al. (2005), most climate model scenarios agree that Sudan, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Chad, Sierra Leone, Angola, Mozambique and Niger are likely to lose cereal production potential by the 2080s. Those countries account for 45 percent of the total number of undernourished people in subSahara Africa, or 87 million undernourished people. On the other hand, Zaire, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Guinea (accounting for 38 percent of the undernourished population in SSA) are projected to gain cereal-production potential by the 2080s (Fischer, Shah, and Van Velthuizen 2002; Fischer et al. 2005). Climate variations tend to disproportionately affect livelihoods of the rural poor as a result of their reduced capacity to buffer against climate risk through assets or the financial market (Brown et al. 2008). Therefore, appropriate adaptation measures targeted at this group should be a priority. Sustainable land management measures are among the important approaches that households can use to adapt to climate vulnerability and change. For example, most farmers in 2 The authors used the Ricardian model, linking land rents and climate, proxied by the present value of future net revenue, for this analysis. This is somewhat controversial for the context in SSA given poor land and other markets. 9 Ethiopia consider soil and water conservation techniques a key strategy to adapt to global warming (Deressa 2008). SLM measures can also help to mitigate GHG emissions and climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil and vegetation, or by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide or methane caused by poor land management practices. However, climate change adaptation strategies that do not involve sustainable land management approaches, such as land expansion into forest areas or excessive crop input applications, including pesticides, might exacerbate land degradation and contribute to GHG emissions. For instance, in the Morogoro region of Tanzania, environmental degradation has increased as a result of farmers’ responses to droughts and other environmental stresses, which have involved agricultural intensification and extensification, livelihood diversification and migration (Paavola 2004). While these strategies have been instrumental for farmers’ survival, they have also contributed to increased deforestation, soil nutrient depletion, soil erosion and reduced water retention. Therefore, by increasing environmental degradation, short-term adaptation strategies adopted to cope with current climate changes might increase the vulnerability of the population to future impacts of climate change. It is therefore critical to examine the potential for SLM approaches to help mitigate and adapt to climate change in SSA, as well as to reverse land degradation. The next section addresses these issues in detail. 10 3. The role of Sustainable Land Management in Sub-Saharan Africa Key messages Land degradation is widespread in Africa, especially in drylands and forest margin areas. Land degradation in SSA is caused mainly by conversion of forests, woodlands and rangelands to crop production; overgrazing of rangelands; and unsustainable agricultural practices on croplands. Climate variability and change can contribute to land degradation by making current land use practices unsustainable and inducing more rapid conversion of land to unsustainable uses. However, climate change also can offer new opportunities for sustainable land management, by increasing temperature and rainfall in some environments, through CO2 fertilization effects, or through the development of markets for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Land degradation increases the vulnerability of rural people in SSA to climate variability and change, while SLM can reduce it. SLM also provides major opportunities to mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 3.1 Land Degradation in sub-Saharan Africa It is widely accepted that management of African lands is much less productive and sustainable than what is possible or desirable. The strong evidence for this comes from data on land degradation and its effects. The first attempt to quantify the extent and severity of land degradation in Africa was from a “convergence of evidence” and expert consensus through the Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD) project (Oldeman, 1994). That effort generated data which revealed that by 1990 some 20 percent of the region was affected by slight to extreme land degradation. The data indicate that the land degradation in different classes is light (one percent), moderate (four percent), severe (five percent) and very severe (seven percent) such that seven percent of 11 the region is degraded to such an extent as to directly affect its productive potential. All land uses have significant degraded areas, with agriculture and rangeland estimated to have the greatest proportion. A more recent assessment of human induced land degradation was made by Vlek et al (2008) using analyses of changes in the normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) between 1981 and 2003. The NDVI is a measure of “greenness” based on analyses of satellite images. Changes in the NDVI over time are caused both by changes in rainfall as well as by changes in management/exploitation by humans and animals. They found that in more than 50% of the sites, there was an increase in NDVI, or a greening phenomenon. For the most part, these areas correspond to increases in annual rainfall amounts, often starting from historically low levels in the early 1980s. In these cases, it is not possible to determine whether land management is improving or worsening and therefore whether land degradation is occurring; it is possible that the increased rainfall is off-setting negative effects of exploitation in terms of overall vegetation estimates. Vlek et al (2008) find that overall in sub-Saharan Africa, about 10% of the land showed clear declines in NDVI which were unrelated to rainfall decline and were thus classified as degraded areas (the authors conjecture that total degraded area in sub-Saharan Africa should include another 10% of land identified as severely degraded by GLASOD, because that land would not have shown further decline in NDVI). These areas are home to about 60 million people and a large proportion can be found in the Sahelian semi-arid belt south of the Sahara and extending eastward into Sudan and Ethiopia (see Figure 2.1). In terms of land use, the areas with the highest rates of degradation were mixed forest/savanna (24%), mixed forest/cropland (15%) and agriculture (9%)3. Thus, there have been clear patterns of vegetation decline in forest margin areas. On the other hand, though woodlands and grasslands have sizeable degraded areas, as a percent of total land area, they are more likely to have had stable or increasing vegetation cover over the period studied. Table 3-1 provides additional evidence on specific forms of land degradation. Soil loss from erosion is high and water stress is widespread. Eswaran et al. (1997) estimated that only 14% of the continent is relatively free of moisture stress. Soil phosphorus deficiency is A land unit was classified as agriculture if more than 50% of the area was agriculture – with clearly demarcated crop or pasture fields. 3 12 widespread in all regions and remains a major constraint to agricultural productivity (Verchot et al. 2007) and aluminum toxicity and low cation exchange capacity are major constraints on the continent (FAO 2000). Henao and Banaante (2006) estimate that 85 percent of African farmland had nutrient mining rates of more than 30 kg/ha of nutrients annually and 40% of land had mining rates of over 60 kg/ha per year. If these figures are extrapolated to the roughly 190 million hectares of cultivated land in Africa, this would translate into a fertilizer replacement cost of well over $500 million in 2006 and even more in 2008, with soaring fertilizer prices. Increases in agricultural production have largely been met through opening up new land to cultivation and have been obtained at the cost of soil degradation as soils are mined for their nutrients. The consequences are enormous. Agricultural productivity has been stagnant on the continent, whereas it has increased markedly elsewhere. As much as 25% of land productivity has been lost to degradation in the second half of the 20th century in Africa (Oldeman 1998). Because of the importance of agriculture to African economies, this has cost between 1% to 9% of GDP, depending on the country (Dregne and Kassas 1991; Dreschel et al 2001). Few African countries are self-sufficient in food production, resulting in massive annual food imports. At the household level, rural poverty rates in Africa remain high, with an increase of the number of rural poor between 1993 and 2002 (World Bank 2007). In 2001, about 28 million Africans faced food emergencies due to catastrophic events (e.g. flooding) that were caused or exacerbated by land degradation (FAO 2001b). 3.1.1. Causes of land degradation The important proximate causes of land degradation are: Conversion of forests, woodlands, and bushlands which are ill-suited to permanent agriculture; Overgrazing of rangelands; Excessive exploitation of natural habitats (e.g. harvesting for fuelwood in woodlands); and Unsustainable agricultural practices (e.g., farming on steep slopes without sufficient use of soil and water conservation measures, excessive tillage, declining use of fallow without application of soil nutrients). 13 In terms of affected area, UNEP (1997) estimated that overgrazing was the most important contributor to degradation, followed by poor agricultural practices and then by overexploitation (see Table 3-2). It is useful to explore these causes in more detail because they shed light on useful technological, institutional, and policy interventions that can reverse land degradation processes and as well contribute positively to climate change adaptation and mitigation. In terms of land conversion, 15 million hectares of forests were cleared annually in Africa during the 1980s, reducing slightly to 12 million per year in the 1990’s (FAO 2001a). The rate of deforestation of 0.6% per year for the past 15 years is among the highest globally. About 26% of deforestation is estimated to pave the way for smallholder agriculture (FAO 2001a). Studies have found that population growth is a good predictor of land use change, for example in Uganda and Malawi (Otsuka and Place 2001). Between 1961 and 1999, agricultural expansion accounted for two-thirds of crop production increase in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to only 29% globally (MEA 2005). In the absence of growth in employment opportunities in urban areas, rural population continues to grow rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa (at about 2.3%), fueling the quest for new agricultural land. With respect to rangelands, WRI (1994) estimated that between 1945 and 1992, almost 500 million hectares of African rangelands became degraded. Overgrazing was estimated to have accounted for half of the degradation. However there is much unsettled debate about how much of the observed degradation (e.g. vegetation loss) is due to management and how much to climate changes. Both are clearly related, as climate change shocks, like a prolonged drought, will lead to reduced vegetation to which herd size cannot be easily adjusted in the short term. Hiernaux (1993) and Behnke and Scoones (1993) both indicate that unanticipated changes in climate have had a more important impact on rangeland vegetation than rangeland management, arguing therefore that rangeland degradation is not irreversible in most cases. There are not many studies that quantify the extent of excessive exploitation of natural habitats. Instead, studies often point towards the dependence of rural populations on the resources found in natural habitats. In Zambia, for example, more than half the country’s fuelwood is converted to charcoal, requiring the clearance of some 430 km2 of woodland every year to produce more than 100,000 tonnes of charcoal (Chenje 2000). In 2000, over 175 million m3 of wood were used in Western Africa for fuelwood and charcoal production (Broadhead et al 14 2001). Similarly, high percentages of energy are met from fuelwood and charcoal in most African countries such as The Gambia (85 %), Niger (90 %), Uganda (96%) and Kenya (75%) (Broadhead et al 2001). Many case studies have shown that the rate of adoption of soil fertility, soil conservation, and water management practices is low in SSA, although substantial numbers of farmers do use particular practices. Within SSA, there are at least 167,000 certified organic farms operating a total organic area of about 231,000 ha (Willer, Yussefi-Menzler and Sorensen 2008). According to UNEP-UNCTAD (2008), at least 1.9 million farmers in Africa use practices that could be classified as “near organic” on nearly 2 million hectares; i.e., traditional sustainable land management practices that apply similar principles as those applied in organic agriculture. This estimate is based on a review of nearly 300 interventions promoting such practices in developing countries (Pretty et al. 2006; Pretty et al. 2003). In East Africa, Kruseman et al (2006) show that fewer than 5% of farmers in Tigray practice long fallows, improved fallows, mulch, or apply green manures and only 7% plowed crop residues back into the soil. Benin (2006) finds similarly low percentages of plots having been improved by farmers in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. Pender et al. (2004) found in Uganda that fewer than 20% of plots had received inorganic fertilizer, manure, compost, or mulch and only one quarter incorporated crop residues. In the Sahel, some technologies, such as contour ridging and zai pits are becoming widespread. But still, many practices, especially in terms of adding nutrients to soils, remains low (Shapiro and Sanders, 2002). In a study in central Malawi, Place et al (2001) found that just 21% of farmers invested in water management. Wyatt (2002) found terracing investment in the past five years on just 33% of plots, despite the hilly terrain. On the other hand, there have been a few land management practices where adoption rates have expanded noticeably. The expansion of the zai pit system in Burkina Faso and Niger has been well documented (e.g. Shapiro and Sanders 2002; Franzel, et al. 2004). Stone terracing was found to be practiced by almost half of farmers in Tigray (Kruseman et al 2006) and Deininger et al (2003) estimated that 47% of all Ethiopian farmers had built or maintained terraces between 1999 and 2001. Rainwater harvesting methods is another that has been found to be widely used, e.g. in semi-arid Tanzania (Hatibu et al 2001).4 Various other conservation 4 It should be noted that adoption rates of relatively recently developed technologies are often bolstered by significant investment in dissemination. 15 techniques, like bunding (e.g. Kenya), minimal tillage (e.g. Zambia), agroforestry (e.g. Tanzania), or terracing (e.g. Madagascar), are often practiced by at least 20% of farmers across a range of African sites, putting total adoption in the millions. Despite these bright spots, what is considered to be a good adoption rate for recently introduced technologies is tens of thousands of farmers and for mature technologies, upwards of 50% of plots/farmers. Hence, there remains quite a large amount of land without significant improvement. Based on a review of these and other studies, Pender (2008) estimated that at least 6 million smallholder farmers in SSA are using low-cost, productivity-enhancing land management practices on at least 5 million ha of land. Although this appears to be a large number, it still represents less than 3% of total cropland in SSA (191 million ha in 2005 [FAOSTAT 2008]). The reasons for low adoption are many. There are certainly cases where technologies are not attractive to farmers, for example, those which require significant labor, land, or cash and those which may seem to pay off only well into the future. But a large number of technologies are found to be ‘technically’ effective and used in certain communities, by certain farmers, or on certain crops. That suggests that it may not be the technology per se, but the conditions that shape costs, benefits and risks from the technology. For example, investments in land have been found many times to be related to improved market access or production of higher value crops (Place et al 2003). Certainly, the lack of strong profit potential of many traditional crops coupled with high risks (e.g. from variable rainfall and markets) reduces incentives for investments of any kind in agriculture. Kassie, et al. (2008) and Kato et al. (2009) both find for the Nile basin in Ethiopia that soil and water conservation investments perform differently in different rainfall areas and regions, which underscores the importance of careful geographical targeting when promoting and scaling up soil and water conservation technologies. Lastly, even where technologies and incentives are sufficient, there may still be missed opportunities for adoption due to poor information flows to farmers. This is especially a consideration for SLM practices that are knowledge intensive. 16 3.2 Sustainable Land Management under Climate Change The relationships between land degradation and sustainable land management and climate change are complex and multi-directional. Briefly, they can be described by 4 distinct processes: Climate change effects on land management and land degradation Climate change and variability can contribute to land degradation by making current land management practices unsustainable (e.g, through increased rainfall/flooding) or through inducing more rapid conversion of land into unsustainable practices. Climate change may offer new opportunities for sustainable land management by enhancing rainfall or growing periods in some places or through creating markets that might pay farmers for improved sustainable land management practices. Effects of land degradation/sustainable land management on climate change impacts Land degradation increases vulnerability of people to climate variability and change, by restricting the range of viable rural enterprises, reducing average agricultural productivity and incomes, increasing production vulnerability, and reducing local resource asset levels, thus undermining people’s ability to adapt to climate change. Sustainable land management can reduce vulnerability to climate change and increase people’s ability to adapt and in many cases can contribute to climate change mitigation through improved carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Each of these relationships is discussed in turn, drawing on both conceptual and empirical analyses. 3.2.1: Climate variability and change may exacerbate land degradation The types of climate change predicted for sub-Saharan Africa – increased temperatures, reduced rainfall in many places, prolonged droughts, reduced growing periods, and increased high intensity rainfall events–can intensify degradation from unprotected sites and strain the ability of existing land management practices to maintain resource quality. Some examples of likely climate change effects are increased extreme rainfall events causing increased erosion and 17 flooding in sloping lands and prolonged drought periods causing depletion of vegetation and soil microfauna in cultivated lands and rangelands. In general, increased temperatures and reduced rainfall will increase aridity. ICRISAT estimates that with a 2oC increase in temperature coupled with a 10 percent decline in rainfall, 1.6 million km2 of sub-humid areas in Africa will become semi-arid and 1.1 million km2 of semi-arid areas will become arid (Cooper et al. 2009). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA 2005) notes that both effects are likely to alter vegetation cover, both in terms of reducing overall levels, but also by altering the diversity of species (those which can thrive on higher temperatures and increased carbon dioxide levels will outcompete others). These effects are quite evident in the rainfall – vegetation cover relationships in the Sahelian rangelands. Between 1970 and 2000, annual rainfall in 26 of the 30 years was below the historic long term average (Brooks 2004) creating what many observed as desertification (see also section 2). Droughts, in combination with human or livestock population pressure, have induced a conversion from grasslands to more degraded shrublands (MEA 2005). The flipside of prolonged and frequent droughts are floods. In 2007 and 2008, over 20 African countries have been severely affected by floods causing great crop loss and dozens of deaths. One of the latest examples was in southern Africa from December 2007-January 2008. That experience showed that prevailing topography and soil characteristics in the region can lead quickly to soil saturation and flooding, even with modest increases in rainfall above the norm. Climate change may also lead to more rapid conversion of natural habitats into agriculture or to unsustainable use/harvesting of natural resources. As trends over the past 20 years have shown, expansion of agricultural area remains high in Africa. By contrast, the Green Revolution in Asia is estimated to have saved as much as 271 million of hectares of land from conversion to cropland compared to the absence of global cereal productivity increases (UNFCCC 2008). Low productivity is undoubtedly a contributing factor to high rates of land clearing, and climate change is expected to put even more downward pressure on yields of major crops in much of Africa. Studies in Africa have also shown that in times of drought and other hardships, communities often resort to harvesting of wild resources – fruits, fodders, grasses, and other marketable products – for survival. Where climate change increases the frequency and scale of demand for natural resource harvesting, there is greater likelihood of resource degradation. 18 However, degradation is not an inevitable result of climate variability and change. For example, many of the predicted rainfall and length of growing season decreases will not be new to communities although they will increase in prevalence. The impact of such events much depends on the capacity of households and communities to mitigate and adapt to such changes. As an example, in the Makindu area of Kenya, the average length of growing period (LGP) could decrease by 5-10% by the year 2050, when temperatures are predicted to have increased by 12oC (Thornton et al 2006). However, Cooper et al (2009) note that even today farmers at Makindu experience LGP’s ranging from 25 days (crop failure) to over 175 days. Thus, a 5-10% decrease in the average LGP is unlikely to result in farmers having to cope in the future with a situation that they have not and are not already experiencing; existing sustainable land and water management technologies to meet current climate variability can therefore help farmers immensely to cope with future climate change (Cooper et al 2009). Thus, adapting to more frequent extreme climate events will likely be the larger challenge for African farmers. This will require concerted efforts on the part of local institutions and national policy makers, a theme which will be addressed in section 4. 3.2.2 Climate change also may offer new opportunities for improved land management and livelihoods While much of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to face harsher agro-climatic conditions, some areas are predicted to improve. For example, under certain climate change scenarios through 2050, large areas of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Nigeria are predicted to experience an increase in the length of growing period (Thornton et al, 2006), leading to potentially higher agricultural productivity in such areas. This in turn may offer greater incentives for investment in agriculture and land management. Increased carbon dioxide from climate change is expected to have a positive effect on plant growth for many C3 plants such as rice, wheat, soybeans, legumes, and most trees (Cline 2007). This is through the stimulus of CO2, for a given level of water and sunlight, on the photosynthesis process which produces energy for plant growth. With climate change markets for greenhouse gas emission reduction and carbon sequestration have emerged, promoted by the Kyoto Protocol and voluntary markets. Furthermore, in late 2005, a process was initiated to develop a formal program for financing of 19 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries (REDD). This may be formally approved by countries in Copenhagen 2009 to set the stage for a financial mechanism to be implemented in the post-2012 climate change framework.5 Improved management of forests would therefore possibly be rewarded in terms of carbon maintained/increased. SLM on non-forested lands could help enable this to happen through increased provision of forest products on farms and through improving land productivity and reducing incentives for forest conversion. Concurrently, there are discussions for rewarding carbon sequestration in all landscapes, including agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU). While AFOLU is not being considered to fall under REDD or other formal carbon market mechanisms in the 2009 negotiations, efforts are underway to develop a framework and timetable for its future inclusion. In addition, standards for AFOLU are being prepared, and pilot projects are already under development using voluntary carbon markets, including the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). SLM will be vital for such AFOLU programs to succeed, as it is only with improved SLM that increased carbon sequestration in vegetation and soils can occur (see section 3.2.4 below for some concrete examples). 3.2.3 Land degradation increases the vulnerability of rural people to climate change Land degradation increases vulnerability of people to climate variability and change, by restricting the range of viable rural enterprises, reducing average agricultural productivity and incomes, increasing production vulnerability (e.g., by reducing soil water holding capacity and organic matter content), and reducing local resource asset levels (broadly defined), thus undermining people’s ability to adapt to climate change (e.g., reduced ability to collect forest products or produce livestock in response to shortfalls in crop production due to climate variation). Ample studies show that crop yields are lower on degraded lands (e.g. Vanlauwe et al. 2007; Shepherd and Soule 1998)). Moreover, the yield response to fertilizer applications is lower on degraded land (Bationo et al. (2003) in Niger and Marenya (2008) in Kenya). Degraded areas are often widespread, affecting entire communities (Shepherd and Walsh, 2007) and have been found to be related to the length of time under cultivation (Marenya 2008). But 5 The prospects for promoting SLM through carbon markets, REDD payments, and other policy approaches are discussed further in section 4 of the paper. 20 other studies have found that the degree of degradation can also vary within farm units. For example, greater land degradation often occurs on the more distant fields from the household compound, since application of manure and other organic materials tends to be concentrated close to the residence (Tittonell et al. 2005, Prudencio 1993, Bamwerinde et al 2006). Thus, the effect of degradation on vulnerability to climate change may be multifaceted – reaching many more households than what might be predicted from land degradation maps. A study by Place et al (2006) contrasting the central and western highlands of Kenya demonstrates how differences in land stewardship and productivity can make a huge difference in enterprise opportunities and poverty. While they have similar rainfall patterns, the western Kenya highlands are characterized by depleted soils, poor yields, and lack of commercial enterprises, while in the central highlands, soil conservation and fertility inputs are high, a wide range of profitable crop, livestock and tree enterprises are tested and grown, and rural poverty rates are the lowest in all of Kenya. The adaptive capacity of central Kenya to climate change is much greater as a result. Finally, it is worthwhile to review the CEEPA (Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa) studies of climate impacts on agriculture. Though the studies used crosssectional household data, the results from across 8 different countries consistently found that households received lower income from agriculture where rainfall was lower, and also often when temperatures were higher, controlling for several other factors (e.g. Deressa 2006, for Ethiopia). This shows that profitable agricultural opportunities in the more challenging climates are either not generally available or are underutilized by farmers, even where they are available. Hence, communities are already economically vulnerable to climates that are predicted to become more prevalent. Land degradation which restricts the types of enterprises which are viable worsens this. Bamwerinde et al (2005), for example, found that plots of lower quality (e.g. stoney lands) in southwest Uganda were dominated by a single land use, woodlots. 3.2.4 Sustainable land management is effective in climate change adaptation and mitigation Sustainable land management offers opportunities for enhancing the adaptation capacity of communities and for mitigating the effects of climate change. Many practices can simultaneously achieve both adaptation and mitigation goals, especially those which increase soil 21 organic carbon. Principles of diversification (especially for adaptation) and revegetation (especially for mitigation) are critical in applying SLM practices under climate change. Adaptation Most, if not all of the practices currently promoted under the heading of sustainable land management practices, are likely to be even more necessary and beneficial under the specter of climate change. This is illustrated in Figure 3.2, which shows generally likely impacts on Africa crop yields from climate change, from sustainable land management practices, and from the interaction of both. Note that predicted negative yield impacts from climate change are still dwarfed by positive proven yield impacts from sustainable land management practices (Cooper et al 2009). To illustrate this more clearly, Cooper et al (2009) explore the situation in a semi arid area of Kenya where the average LGP under current climate and normal soil management is 110 days. This is reduced by 8%, with a 3oC rise in temperature, to 101 days under an average climate change scenario. However, the application of maize residue mulch under the climate change scenario in fact raises the average LGP to 113 days. Thus, while research must continue to improve land management options for farmers, there are ample technologies available that can effectively help farmers adapt to climate change (and in some cases overcome climate change). Table 3.3 lists a number of beneficial SLM practices, under the sub-headings of improved crop and livestock management, improved soil management, and improved water management. Many of the technologies will help to increase average productivity (e.g. improved agronomic practices, nutrient management, enriched pastures, and water management), some of those and others will also reduce variability of production (e.g irrigation and integrated pest management (IPM)) and yet others may serve to diversify agricultural portfolios (e.g. agroforestry systems, crop rotations). The processes through which the SLM practices affect productivity vary across different practices and thus there are often additive and possibly synergistic effects through integration of two or more practices. For example, ICRISAT (1985) found that water management and nutrient management together increased water use efficiency by a large amount in Niger. Long term trials at Kabete in Kenya found that soil carbon stocks were 30% greater through a combination of animal manure and mineral fertilizer application than on any single nutrient management method (Nandwa and Bekunda 1998). With predictions of increased droughts, higher temperatures (and evaporation rates), and more frequent catastrophic rainfall 22 events, the incremental impact of many of the SLM practices is likely to increase, e.g. those which better manage scarce water resources, those that preserve soil moisture (e.g. zero tillage), and those which can prevent soil erosion. In addition to the anticipated impacts of SLM on agricultural productivity, SLM practiced on farms and off farms, especially if coordinated at catchment or watershed scales, can have important impacts off-site, such as on hydrological flows, hydroelectric power generation, and flooding risk, all of which are expected to be affected by climate change. There is mixed evidence on farmer adoption of SLM specifically as an adaptation strategy to climate change. For example, in South Africa, Thomas et al (2007) found that farmers and communities focused on diversification of enterprises and enhancing networks but not on investing in SLM practices (also found in Senegal, Sene et al 2006). However, Benhin (2006) found that farmers in other South African sites were in fact increasing use of irrigation and soil conservation practices as part of adaptation strategies (also found in Kenya by KabuboMariara and Karanja, 2006). In the Nile Basin of Ethiopia, Yesuf, et al. (2008) found that 31% of farmers who perceived long term declines in rainfall (most farmers surveyed) reported investing in soil and water conservation measures – the most common adaptation measure adopted – while 4% reported adopting water harvesting and 3% planted trees as adaptation measures. One clear adaptation practice appears to be the choice of crops grown. Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn (2006) found that crop choice across 11 African countries is highly related to temperature and precipitation. The conclusion they draw is that more attention must be given to expanding the range of crops suitable to warmer and drier climates. However, this ignores the strong role that some SLM practices can play in overcoming or reversing the productivity decreasing impact of harsher climate change (even without making a crop choice change), as shown above. Inattention to the potential of SLM as an adaptation strategy in current literature (e.g. for Zambia, Jain 2006) could lead the prioritization of lead future research and development investments astray. Mitigation Sustainable land management can play a significant role in climate change mitigation through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and sequestering carbon in vegetation, litter, and soils. 23 A first major impact in Africa would be on the rate of land conversion to cultivation, which as noted above, is still high. In fact, according to Figure 3.3, land use change and deforestation accounts for the overwhelming amount of greenhouse gas emissions in Africa, about 64%, which is a much greater share of GHG emissions than elsewhere in the world. As will be discussed below, many of the SLM practices which are useful for climate change adaptation and mitigation are also productivity enhancing, and as such would depress the push factors which have long induced rapid land conversion in Africa, as has been the experience in Asia. In addition to their effects on land use change, SLM practices can also have important mitigation effects in situ, on the agricultural lands themselves. The UNFCCC (2008) estimates that for Africa, 924 mega tons of additional CO2 could be stored with the adoption of improved agricultural practices. Much of this (89%) is predicted to come from soil carbon, because although the amount of additional carbon that can be sequestered in soils is less than the potential above ground (e.g. through trees),for a given size of land, the total volume of soil is high. The types of practices that can build soil carbon almost always represent win-win outcomes because improved soil carbon has been proven to contribute positively to plant growth and agricultural productivity (Swift and Shepherd 2007). Table 3.3 provided a list of many types of land and water management practices that can contribute to soil carbon build up (last column). Table 3.4 enriches that by providing estimates of the amount of soil carbon sequestration that could be achieved through effective application of alternative land management practices (Smith and Martino 2007). First, it should be noted that the potential for increased carbon sequestration is higher in humid areas than in dry areas, for most SLM practices. For example, many SLM practices that are being practiced by some farmers in Africa, such as improved agronomy, minimum tillage, nutrient management, and agroforestry can each store between 0.26 and 0.33 tons per hectare of additional CO2 equivalent per year, per hectare in the drier areas and between 0.55 and 0.80 in more humid areas. Second, more significant restoration activities are likely to be much more effective in soil carbon sequestration than practices that support intensive agriculture. Hence, table 3.4 shows much higher per hectare carbon storage from set asides (i.e. exclosures), and restoration of organic soils (e.g. peats) and degraded lands. The same can hold true for rehabilitation of degraded rangeland where set aside practices and revegetation efforts could significantly increase carbon storage. The table also indicates that farmers are likely to be able to enhance soil carbon 24 sequestration through the integrated use of several SLM practices and communities are likely to benefit more from possible carbon projects through integrated use of on-farm and off-farm SLM practices. In parallel to discussions to identify beneficial SLM practices, there is also some debate about potential harmful practices. One receiving significant attention is the agricultural intensification model of irrigation and high fertilizer use. Smith and Martino (2007) review findings that irrigation and nitrogen fertilizers contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, in South Asia, increased use of fertilizer is a main source of emissions from agriculture. Further, there is additional contribution to greenhouse gases during the production of fertilizers. However, Vlek et al. (2004) point out that in a landscape context, if the use of fertilizers can enable the removal of land from agriculture and possible reforestation on that land, then fertilizer use can have a clear positive effect on net carbon sequestration. But whether agricultural land could be reduced on a large scale in Africa following yield increases is debatable, given the limited extent of non-agricultural employment opportunities. Lastly, various land management practices can contribute to climate change mitigation through above ground carbon sequestration. The most important of these practices is the planting of woody vegetation in landscapes or on farms (agroforestry). In Africa, while tree cover has been shown to be decreasing in forests and woodlands (see above), tree planting or protection of naturally occurring trees by farmers has been shown to be increasing in many regions (Place and Otsuka 2002; Holmgren et al. 1994; Mortimore et al. 2001; Larwanou, Abdoulaye and Reij 2006). The ability of agroforestry to increase carbon depends ultimately on the type and density of trees and the length of time before they are harvested. At one extreme, multi-strata agroforests in humid zones (e.g. homegardens on Mt. Kilimanjaro) can store up to 40 tons of carbon per hectare – or roughly between 11 – 15 tons of tons of CO2 equivalent per hectare per year (UNFCCC 2008). Those which are harvested more frequently or sparse woodlands in dryland areas (e.g. the parklands of the Sahel) will sequester much less over a similar period of time. In contrast, annual crop fields and pastures will often store below 10 tons of carbon per hectare (Palm et al. 1999). A much more detailed analysis of the adaptation and mitigation potential of specific land and livestock management practices can be found in Woodfine (2009). In addition to describing 25 the practices and qualitatively assessing their adoption and adaptation potential, that paper provides quantitative evidence (where available) for mitigation benefits and costs. In conclusion, sustainable land management presents the necessary integrated response for securing land and water quality in a changing climate. Managing land resources productively over the long-term requires (i) addressing environmental and socio-economic issues, incorporating climate and drought risk (ie., diversification of production and livelihoods can accommodate greater climate uncertainty and vulnerability), (ii) balancing trade-offs between different land uses within the landscape (ie., watershed planning), and (iii) greater uptake of locally appropriate and generally profitable productive practices (ie, intercropping, agroforestry, soil moisture management, terracing, low-till, etc.). 26 4. Policies and Strategies to Promote Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in SSA through SLM While elements of SLM have had some success in isolated settings in Africa, a range of policy, institutional, and knowledge barriers prevent larger uptake. In this section we discuss policies and strategies to promote climate change mitigation and adaption in sub-Saharan Africa through promoting sustainable land management. First we review existing policies and strategies, and the extent of their implementation. Then we consider opportunities and constraints to scaling up mitigation and adaptation using SLM approaches, and based on this, identify options to take advantage of the opportunities and overcome the constraints. The key messages are summarized at the beginning of each major subsection. 4.1. Existing Policies and Strategies Related to Climate Change and SLM Key messages There are many policy frameworks, strategies, institutions and programs affecting opportunities and constraints to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM in SSA. Among the most potentially important are the CDM, the voluntary carbon market, climate mitigation and adaptation funds, the UNCCD, NEPAD/CAADP, TerrAfrica and regional, sub-regional and national policy processes linked to these. SLM can provide an integrative framework for the various policy conventions and available financing mechanisms. The current use of these mechanisms to support SLM projects in SSA is very limited: o Only 10 afforestation or reforestation projects in SSA are in the CDM pipeline. o No offsets are supplied to the CCX by SLM projects in SSA, and only about 0.2 MtCO2e were offset through other voluntary transactions involving land management in SSA in 2007 (less than 0.5% of global voluntary transactions). o Many carbon mitigation funds have been established, but most do not support AFOLU activities in SSA. o Several adaptation funds have been established, but they are small compared to the total need, and access to these funds in SSA has been very limited so far. 27 o Implementation of National Action Programmes of the UNCCD has been limited by funding constraints and other factors. NEPAD’s CAADP and TerrAfrica are working in partnership to promote upscaling of SLM in Africa, with increasing focus on climate change mitigation and adaption. o TerrAfrica has mobilized $150 million in funds that are expected to leverage an additional $1 billion to support this goal. o CAADP and TerrAfrica are working with African governments to develop and support CSIFs for SLM. Integrating strategies and programs to promote SLM and address climate change with each other and with national development strategies and policies is a major challenge. Addressing this challenge is a major emphasis of the CSIFs. The existing policies and strategies that affect climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in SSA through SLM include multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), such as the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol, the UNCCD, the CBD, and other relevant MEAs; and voluntary carbon markets and related mitigation projects and activities. These also include regional initiatives to promote SLM, including the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the Environment Action Plan of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the TerrAfrica partnership, and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Most of these initiatives involve consultative planning processes at the subregional level, usually involving the regional economic communities (RECs), as well as detailed planning and implementation processes at the national level. In addition, most nations have broader policy and development strategy frameworks that initiatives related to climate change and SLM must be consistent with and support, such as their poverty reduction strategies, rural development strategies, environmental policy frameworks, and others. We discuss each of these policies and strategies briefly, focusing on aspects most relevant to promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation in SSA through SLM. 28 4.1.1. UNFCCC Mitigation The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was developed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 (also called the “Rio Earth Summit”) and entered into force in 1994, with its main objective “to stabilize GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent further human-induced global warming”. Parties to the convention adopted the Kyoto Protocol (KP) in 1997, which required reductions of emissions of four GHGs (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and sulphur hexafluoride) by “Annex 1” (industrialized) countries relative to their emission levels in 1990 (an aggregate 5.2% reduction, with varying reductions required of different countries). The KP entered into force in February 2005 and will expire in 2012. As of January 2009, 183 countries had ratified the Protocol6, with the United States being the sole Annex 1 country not to ratify it. In addition to requiring emissions reductions by Annex 1 countries, the KP provided for emissions trading through three market mechanisms: i) emissions trading within Annex 1 countries; ii) the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), through which Annex 1 countries can purchase certified emission reductions (CERs) by supporting projects implemented in developing countries; and iii) Joint Implementation (JI), through which Annex 1 countries can purchase emission reduction units (ERUs) through projects in other developed countries or transition economies. Emissions trading in the European Union (EU) is by far the largest market, with a total volume of more than 2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) in emission allowances worth $50 billion traded in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in 2007, accounting for more than twothirds of the entire carbon market (Table 4.1). The CDM is the second largest market, accounting for CERs of nearly 800 million tons of CO2e valued at nearly $13 billion in 2007. Of these mechanisms, only the CDM supports projects in SSA. The rules of the CDM allow support to projects that reduce emissions of GHG, such as installation of more efficient industrial processes or replacement of hydrocarbon fuels by renewable energy sources. In the agricultural sector, eligible projects include those that reduce GHG emissions through improved manure management, reduction of enteric fermentation in livestock (e.g., through improved 6 Technically, these countries had ratified, accepted, approved or acceded to the terms of the Kyoto Protocol (see http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/items/2613.php). All of these terms imply that the terms of the agreement are legally binding. 29 feeding practices), improved fertilizer usage or improved water management in rice cultivation (http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2005/cmp1/eng/08a01.pdf, p. 45). Most agricultural CDM projects involve flaring of biogas produced by intensive livestock operations (UNEP Risoe 2009). Afforestation and reforestation projects are also eligible for emission reduction credits under the CDM. Other AFOLU activities, such as revegetation of grasslands or soil carbon sequestration in agricultural lands, are not eligible for the CDM. By March 2009 there were only three registered CDM projects related to afforestation or reforestation, accounting for less than 0.2% of all registered CDM projects and about 200,000 tCO2e of CERs. None of these registered CDM afforestation/reforestation projects was in Africa (http://cdm.unfccc.int/Statistics/index.html). Many more afforestation/reforestation projects are in the CDM pipeline, however, including several in Africa. Globally, there were 35 afforestation/reforestation projects in the pipeline by early March 2009, of which 10 were in SSA (UNEP Risoe 2009). These include five projects in Uganda, two in Tanzania, and one each in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali. By 2012, these projects are expected to generate about 3 MtCO2e of emission offsets; mostly due to a large reforestation project in Tanzania (Ibid.). The total emissions reductions from these 10 projects is a very small fraction of the total emission reductions from all CDM projects in SSA, estimated at about 32 Mt CO2 eq by 2012. This total is itself a small fraction of the total amount of emission reductions purchased under CDM. Adaptation Although the main emphasis of the UNFCCC is on GHG mitigation, in recent years there has been increasing attention paid to the need for adaptation. The UNFCCC requires all signatory countries to take appropriate actions to facilitate adaptation, and developed country parties are required to provide financial resources to developing countries to meet these obligations, with particular emphasis on assisting small island developing countries, least developing countries, and countries otherwise highly vulnerable to climate variability. As part of their obligations under the UNFCCC, most countries in SSA have developed National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), which identify strategies and priority projects for adapting to climate change. However, these programs have yet to be fully implemented in most cases, in part due to lack of funds to support the prioritized activities. 30 Several international funds have been established to support climate change adaptation. Three of these are under the control of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The Strategic Priority for Adaptation (SPA) fund is a $50 million fund that supports demonstration projects in non-Annex 1 countries on adaptation activities with global environmental benefits (Ambrosi 2009). The Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a $180 million fund that supports priority adaptation projects identified by the NAPA’s of the poorest countries, which includes most countries in SSA. The Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) is a $90 million fund similar to the LDCF, but which is available to all non-Annex 1 countries (Ibid.). In addition to these funds, the UNFCCC manages a new Adaptation Fund that was established under the Kyoto Protocol and financed by a 2 percent levy on CDM projects. The size of the fund will depend on the total value of CDM projects that are approved, but this fund is expected to reach $100 million to $500 million by 2012 (UNFCCC 2007). Other funds that support climate change adaptation include the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), which works in partnership within the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) and focuses on building capacities to enhance disaster resilience and adaptive capacities in changing climate (fund amount $40 million in fiscal year 2008); the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) adaptation facilities for Africa ($90 - $120 million); various trust funds and partnerships housed in multi-lateral development banks (MDBs); and climate related research led by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) ($77 million) (Ambrosi 2009). In addition, several new funds have been established supporting both climate change adaptation and mitigation activities, including two Climate Investment Funds (CIF) managed by the World Bank and regional development banks, and the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) supported by the European Community (EC) (with funds of about €300 million) (Ibid.). The CIF were established in 2008 and include two funds: the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), which will focus on financing projects and programs in developing countries which contribute to the demonstration, deployment, and transfer of low-carbon technologies (mainly clean energy technologies); and the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF), which will be broader and more flexible in scope and will serve as an overarching fund for various programs to test innovative approaches to climate change (http://go.worldbank.org/FHNFBC0W10). By September 2008, donor governments had pledged $6.3 billion to these two funds, including $4.3 31 billion for the CTF and $2.0 billion for the SCF (Op cit.; “CIF Financial Status as of January 26, 2009”). Of the two CIF funds, the SCF is the most relevant to supporting SLM activities. Under the SCF, three programs are envisioned so far – a Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR), a Forest Investment Program (FIP), and a program for Scaling up Renewable Energy (SRE). The PPCR is intended to be complementary to other adaptation funds, focusing on providing programmatic finance for developing and implementing country-led national climate resilient development plans, and providing lessons that can be taken up by countries, the development community and the future climate change regime. The FIP is intended to mobilize significantly increased funds to reduce deforestation and forest degradation and to promote sustainable forest management. Of the $2 billion pledged to the SCF, $240 million was specifically targeted to the PPCR, $58 million to the FIP, and $70 million to the SRE (most of the pledged funds were not allocated to any specific program). In addition to funds specifically targeted to promoting climate change adaptation (and mitigation), increasing attention is being paid to addressing climate issues in regular flows of official development assistance (ODA). The integration of climate change adaptation and mitigation concerns into broader economic development programs offers an important opportunity to scale up investments that will have beneficial impacts on adapting to and mitigating climate change, including investments in sustainable land management. We discuss this opportunity further in a subsequent section. Although these adaptation funds are available and growing in size, they represent only a small fraction of the funds that will be needed to finance adaptation activities in developing countries. According to a UNFCCC study of the costs required for climate change mitigation and adaptation, $28 billion to $67 billion per year will be required to finance adaptation activities in developing countries by 2030 (UNFCCC 2007). About $14 billion per year is estimated to be needed for adaptation in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector, with about half of this in developing countries. Most of these expenditures ($11 billion) will be needed to finance capital assets; for example for irrigation, adoption of new practices or to relocate processing facilities, and much of this (especially in developed countries) is expected to be financed by private sources. $3 billion is estimated to be needed annually for agricultural and natural resource management research, development and extension, primarily in developing countries, with 32 public sources expected to provide most of this. The additional expenditures to protect natural ecosystems are estimated to be $12 to $22 billion globally (Ibid.). 4.1.2. Other carbon compliance markets and voluntary carbon markets In addition to the carbon markets that have arisen as a result of the Kyoto Protocol’s emission reduction requirements, other compliance markets as well as voluntary carbon markets have arisen as a result of buyers who want to prepare for expected future requirements (for example, industries in the United States), who want to offset their “carbon footprint”, to demonstrate corporate social responsibility, for public relations, or other reasons. Other non-Kyoto compliance markets include Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, which began in 2003 and is focused on reducing GHG emissions from the power sector, and emerging markets in North America resulting from state or provincial level regulations of GHGs, such as the Oregon Standard, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative of ten states in the eastern United States, the Global Warming Solutions Act in California, the Western Climate Initiative of six western U.S. states and three Canadian provinces, and the Midwestern Regional GHG Reduction Program of six Midwestern U.S. states and Manitoba province of Canada (Capoor and Ambrosi 2008; Hamilton, et al. 2008).7 Voluntary markets include the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which is based on a voluntary cap and trade system, project-based transactions for “pre-CDM” projects (i.e., those that are in the process of seeking registration under CDM), and other emission reduction projects. Transactions occurring outside of the CCX are referred to as the “over the counter” (OTC) market by Hamilton, et al. (2008). In 2007, 16% of OTC transactions were based on projects meeting CDM or JI standards, while 7% were based on CCX standards. A growing number of third party standards are used in voluntary carbon markets. In 2007 about 87% of OTC transactions were verified by a third party (Hamilton, et al. 2008). The most commonly used standards are the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) (29% of OTC transactions in 2007), the VER+ standard (9%), and the Gold Standard (9%) (Ibid.). Of these commonly used standards, only the Gold Standard requires certification of a project’s social and environmental benefits in addition to certified reductions of greenhouse gases. Other third party standards also 7 Forty-four state and provincial governments in the U.S. and Mexico have already established GHG emission reduction targets and/or renewable portfolio standard targets, or are participating in one of three emerging regional GHG emissions trading programs in North America (Capoor and Ambrosi 2008). 33 require social and environment benefits (e.g., CCB standards, Plan Vivo and Social Carbon standards), but were much less commonly used in 2007. Most of the third party standards include or accept methodologies for certifying projects related to land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). These other carbon markets are growing rapidly, but are still a very small proportion of the total carbon market, compared to the Kyoto based markets. For example, the volume of emissions reductions transacted in the CCX in 2007 was less than 1 percent of the total volume of emissions reductions traded that year, and only about 0.1 percent of the total value of exchanges (Table 4-1). This reflects not only the relatively small size of this market, but also the low prices obtained for voluntary emissions reductions compared to the prices for emissions reductions in the compliance markets, especially under the EU ETS. In early 2008, the mean price for emission allocations under the EU ETS ranged between 20 and 25 Euros per tCO2e, while prices for CERs under the CDM ranged between 8 and 13 Euros per tCO2e and prices on the CCX were in the $1 to $4 (1 to 3 Euros) per tCO2e range for most of 2007 (Capoor and Ambrosi 2008).8 Although voluntary markets are small in scale and offer much lower prices, almost all carbon finance for LULUCF or AFOLU related projects is through these markets. 9 In 2007, at least 5 MtCO2e were offset through land use projects in the OTC market (Hamilton, et al. 2008). Although this is a tiny fraction of the entire CDM market (nearly 800 MtCO2e in 2007), it is much larger than the CDM market for land use projects (0.2 MtCO2e for the three registered CDM land use projects in 2007). In addition, about half of the offsets purchased through the CCX between 2003 and 2007 (amounting to about 17 MtCO2e) were for land use projects – primarily soil carbon sequestration projects (Ibid.). However, none of the CCX offsets and fewer than 5 percent of the OTC offsets for land use projects were for projects in Africa. Voluntary markets are important in fostering innovation in the carbon market by demonstrating the feasibility of new types of trades and contracts that are not allowed under the Kyoto Protocol. For example, contracts are traded on the CCX for soil carbon sequestration in croplands and rangelands and for reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), even though such projects do not qualify under CDM (Bryan, et al. 2008). Eligible projects for 8 Projects with a Gold Standard certification or pre-CDM projects compliant with CDM requirements obtain higher prices in the voluntary market, but still below the levels of registered CDM projects (Capoor and Ambrosi 2008). 9 The term LULUCF has been replaced by the more encompassing term AFOLU (Jindal, et al. 2008). 34 agricultural soil carbon sequestration include projects promoting conservation tillage and grass planting. Standard contracts have been developed for these projects, and for conservation tillage, emissions reductions are credited at a rate between 0.2 and 0.6 tCO2 per acre per year (0.5 to 1.5 tCO2 per hectare per year). REDD projects earn offsets for additional net carbon sequestered compared to the previous year. Although such markets appear to offer little to African nations and farmers because of their small size and limited trading of AFOLU projects in Africa, they may be very important in demonstrating the feasibility of such contracts to the negotiations in Copenhagen on the post-Kyoto climate treaty. 4.1.3. Carbon mitigation funds Various carbon mitigation funds have been established by multilateral and bilateral donors and development banks, which can be particularly important to finance development of carbon mitigation projects in SSA. There are at least 17 funds and facilities managed by multilateral development banks with a value of close to US$3 billion, of which a large part (about two-thirds) is already committed (Ambrosi 2009). The World Bank has established three carbon funds – including the BioCarbon Fund (BCF), the Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF), and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) – which are targeted to poorer countries and, in the case of the BCF, to rural areas of developing countries. The CDCF, which was established in 2003 and currently totals about $129 million, focuses on financing projects related to AFOLU that also provide significant development benefits to communities in the project vicinity. The BCF, which was established in 2004 and totals about $54 million, focuses mainly on financing afforestation and reforestation activities eligible under CDM projects and the broader set of AFOLU activities eligible under JI projects; but it also has a smaller window to explore and finance options not eligible under the KP mechanisms but that may be creditable under other programs (such as restoration of degraded land, rehabilitation of dryland grazing lands, etc.). The FCPF was launched at the UNFCCC meeting in Bali in December 2007, but is not yet operational. It is intended to focus on financing REDD activities. In addition, the GEF is providing about $250 million per year in grant financing for mitigation activities during 20062010. Many other carbon mitigation funds have been established by particular governments (especially in Europe and Japan), development banks and private investors. Almost all of these 35 focus on financing CDM and/or JI projects. Many of these focus on financing projects in particular geographic regions or particular sectors. Few of these target SSA or AFOLU activities, although several permit financing of any project that is eligible for the CDM or JI. Some of these funds – for example, the European, Dutch and Danish government funds – specifically exclude AFOLU projects because of concerns about the technical, business and political feasibility of such projects. 4.1.4. UNCCD Like the UNFCCC, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was established as an outcome of the UNCED in 1992. It was adopted by the United Nations in 1994 and entered into force in December 1996. The objective of the convention is to combat desertification – defined as land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas due to various factors, including human causes and climate variability – and mitigate the effects of drought in countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa. 192 countries have ratified (or approved, accepted or acceded to) the convention. A major emphasis of the UNCCD is to integrate objectives of poverty reduction and economic and social development with the objective of combating desertification and mitigating drought. In recent years, the UNCCD Secretariat and the Global Mechanism (which focuses on financial resource mobilization for implementing the convention) have increasingly emphasized the synergies between the UNCCD and other MEAs, especially the UNFCCC. Under the UNCCD, affected developing countries are required to develop National Action Programmes (NAPs) to combat desertification and mitigate drought, which diagnose the causes of these problems and identify strategies, enabling policies and specific actions and investments to address them. These programs have been generally developed through consultative and participatory processes involving stakeholders from governments at different levels, civil society, the private sector, and representatives of communities. To date, NAPs have been developed by 34 countries in SSA. In addition to the NAPs, Sub-regional Action Programmes (SRAPs) and a Regional Action Programme (RAP) have also been developed in Africa under the UNCCD. These subregional and regional programs are intended to ensure adequate coordination of the national programs and address issues that aren’t adequately addressed within national programs, such as 36 management of transboundary resources, drought warning systems, information collection and dissemination, sub-regional or regional research priorities, and others. Although many NAPs, SRAPs and a Regional Action Programme have been developed in Africa, progress in implementing these programs has been slow. In some cases, this may be due to the relatively recent development of these programs. For example, the NAPs for Botswana, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea were not submitted until 2006, and the SRAP for Central Africa was not submitted until 2007. However, in most cases, NAPs and SRAPs were submitted by 2002. The most serious constraint to implementation for many years was the lack of financial support for the convention, either from international donors or national governments. This situation has been changing in recent years, since the Global Environment Facility (GEF) was designated a financial mechanism of the UNCCD (in 2003), and since establishment of important new partnerships to promote SLM in Africa, including the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the Environment Action Plan (EAP) of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), and the TerrAfrica partnership. These initiatives are raising substantial amounts of funds to support SLM and the UNCCD. Since October 2006, the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD (GM), the GEF Secretariat and its Implementing and Executing Agencies have developed a pipeline of 20 projects addressing land degradation in Africa, Asia and Latin America, for which the envisaged financing exceeds $3 billion over ten years (http://www.global-mechanism.org/work-with-us/strategicpartnerships/gef). The TerrAfrica partnership has mobilized $150 million in GEF funds to support SLM activities in SSA, which is expected to leverage up to $1 billion in funds from other sources. These activities are discussed further in a later subsection. In addition, there are opportunities to substantially increase SLM investments that contribute to climate change mitigation and adaption through the CDM mechanism and climate adaptation funds, highlighting the potential synergies between the UNCCD and UNFCCC. 4.1.5. CBD The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was also born at the 1992 UNCED, and entered into force in 1993. The goal of the CBD is to conserve biodiversity, ensure sustainable use of its components, and ensure equitable sharing of the benefits of use of genetic resources. 191 37 nations have ratified (or adopted, accepted or acceded to) the CBD, with the United States the only major nation not to have done so (it has signed but not ratified the treaty). Among the issues addressed by the convention include Measures and incentives for conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity; Regulated access to genetic resources; Access to and transfer of technology, including biotechnology; and others (e.g., technical and scientific cooperation, impact assessment, education and public awareness, provision of financial resources, national reporting on implementation). The CBD has thematic programs focusing on biodiversity in many particular ecosystems, including agriculture, dry and sub-humid lands, forests, inland waters, islands, marine and coastal areas, and mountains. The CBD is implemented mainly at the national level by the parties. Most countries – including more than 40 countries in SSA – have developed Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (BSAPs) to fulfill their obligations under the CBD. Funding for implementation of these strategies and plans is provided by the GEF as well as national governments and other donors. The GEF allocations to SSA countries for biodiversity activities under fourth replenishment of the GEF trust fund (GEF-4) range from $3.4 to $24.9 million. As with other MEAs, the CBD is actively pursuing linkages to UNFCCC, UNCCD and other agreements to increase synergies in biodiversity conservation. Developing REDD is a major new area of emphasis for the CBD, and one of the areas most relevant to SLM and climate change issues (his will be discussed further below). The CBD is also promoting development of habitat networks and biological corridors in agricultural landscapes, which also has synergies with addressing SLM and climate change. 4.1.6. Other Multilateral Environmental Agreements The UNFCCC, UNCCD, and CBD are the most important and relevant MEAs to issues of climate change and SLM in SSA, but several others are relevant as well. Among these are the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention for Cooperation in Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central African Region, 38 the Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region, the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-Based Activities, and the International Coral Reef Initiative. Strategies and activities related to SLM and climate change mitigation and adaptation are likely to have impacts on the resources covered by these MEAs; hence coordination is needed to ensure that synergies are promoted and tradeoffs minimized among the objectives of these different agreements. 4.1.7. NEPAD: CAADP and EAP The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a vision and strategic framework for Africa’s renewal. The NEPAD strategic framework document was adopted in 2001 by the Organization for African Unity (now the African Union). NEPAD’s primary objectives are to eradicate poverty, promote sustainable growth and development, integrate Africa in the world economy, and accelerate the empowerment of women. NEPAD has undertaken several initiatives to achieve its objectives. Among these, those most directly relevant to issues of SLM and climate change are the Environment Action Plan (EAP) and the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The EAP, which was adopted in 2003, proposes strategies and activities to promote sustainable management of environmental resources in Africa, focusing on the following themes: combating land degradation, drought and desertification; wetlands; invasive species; marine and coastal resources; cross-border conservation of natural resources; climate change; and crosscutting issues. The program of the EAP on combating land degradation, drought and desertification was based on the action programs of the UNCCD, with the objective of facilitating implementation of the UNCCD through support to finalizing and implementing NAPs and SRAPs, strengthening information collection and knowledge sharing systems, harnessing indigenous knowledge of land management, strengthening and mobilizing scientific, technical, institutional and human capacities; establishing regional centers of excellence, enhancing public awareness and education in support of the convention, promoting participation of civil society and local communities in implementing the convention, and promoting SouthSouth cooperation. Implementation of this program area is achieved in collaboration with the implementing agencies of the UNCCD. The program of the EAP on climate change focuses on 39 vulnerability assessment, development of adaptation strategies, implementation of pilot projects and capacity strengthening activities. Projects prioritized by the EAP on climate change include promotion of renewable energy; establishment of linkages between climate change experts and energy initiative capacity development for sustainable development and the CDM; and evaluating synergies of climate adaptation and mitigation activities through pilot projects in agroforestry. The CAADP is the most ambitious and comprehensive agricultural reform effort yet undertaken in Africa, addressing policy and capacity issues in agriculture across the entire continent. Development of the CAADP began in 2002, and was given major impetus by the Maputo Declaration in 2003, in which the African Union leaders endorsed CAADP and committed to increasing agriculture’s share of their national budgets to at least 10% and achieve a 6% annual growth in agricultural production by 2015. The CAADP program was developed through a series of consultations (“roundtables”) at regional, sub-regional and national levels. It is based on four pillars: i) sustainable land and water management; ii) improving market access; iii) increasing food supply and reducing hunger; and iv) improving agricultural research and technology adoption. Although there has been great progress in developing the overall program and the content of the specific pillars, these have not been fully operationalized yet. To operationalize Pillar 1 on sustainable land and water management, the proposed focus is to be on addressing various barriers to upscaling SLM in Africa, including knowledge management barriers, institutional and governance barriers, financial resource bottlenecks, legislative and regulatory barriers, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) barriers (Bwalya, et al. 2009). The road map envisioned to achieve the goal of sustainable land and water management (SLWM) includes steps to build a regional consensus about SLWM, conduct an awareness raising and consensus building campaign, building African-owned coalitions and partnerships, developing a mechanism for coordinating and harmonizing grants, developing a Strategic Investment Program (SIP) for SLWM in Africa, developing a regional knowledge base, developing generic country specific SLWM investment framework (CSIF) guidelines, developing generic M&E guidelines, providing a platform for providing comprehensive support to agricultural water in SSA, and leveraging the political dialogue and addressing international rivers and riparian issues (Ibid.). These steps are to be taken in the context of the TerrAfrica partnership. 40 4.1.8. TerrAfrica TerrAfrica is a partnership of African governments, NEPAD, regional and sub-regional organizations, the UNCCD, multilateral and bilateral donors, civil society and research organizations, to promote scaling up of SLM in SSA. It was initiated in 2005 to support implementation of UNCCD, CAADP, and the Environment Action Plan of NEPAD. The establishment of TerrAfrica was motivated by several lessons from past efforts to address land degradation in Africa: There are too many overlapping and scattered programs with conflicting objectives. Land degradation is too large for a single institution to address. Narrow approaches have had a limited and unsustained impact. Poor knowledge management has constrained scaling up of SLM. TerrAfrica focuses on three activity lines: i) coalition building, ii) knowledge management, and iii) investments in SLM. As mentioned earlier, TerrAfrica has mobilized $150 million investment from GEF, which is expected to leverage up to $1 billion in additional funds from donors, governments and private sources. TerrAfrica is working with many countries to develop Country Strategic Investment Frameworks (CSIFs) for scaling up SLM. Progress is most advanced in four pilot countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda. By the end of 2007, all of these countries had made substantial progress to develop their CSIF; priority SLM investments had been identified and in some countries mobilized; and analytical work completed to support decision making for mainstreaming SLM in government programs and expenditures (Table 4.2). These countries have all moved to Phase 2 of TerrAfrica implementation, with an increased focus on implementing investment projects. For example, in Ethiopia, a large watershed development project financed by the World Bank and GEF was approved and initiated in 2008, drawing upon the Country Partnership Program for SLM developed via the TerrAfrica partnership. Eleven other countries – Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania, Lesotho, Tanzania – were involved in Phase 1 of TerrAfrica implementation in 2007, during which the focus was on planning, coalition building, and analytical activities (TerrAfrica 2007). Most of these countries made substantial progress in 2008 in developing their CSIFs and building the basis for programming SLM investments in the future. 41 The TerrAfrica partnership is playing an increasing role in promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation in Africa through SLM. Because of the linkages between SLM and climate change, as explained in sections 2 and 3 of this paper, TerrAfrica can help to improve climate resilience in SSA by strengthening national capacities to incorporate SLM into their plans and programs to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to access funding to support these plans and programs. 4.1.9. Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an African-led partnership to boost agricultural productivity in Africa in an environmentally sustainable way. It was established by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006. The Department for International Development (DfID) joined as a partner in 2008. AGRA works with African governments, other donors, NGOs, the private sector and African farmers to achieve its objectives. AGRA’s focus areas include • Developing better and more appropriate seeds; • Improving soil health; • Improving income opportunities through better access to agricultural markets; • Improving access to water and water-use efficiency; • Encouraging government policies that support small-scale farmers; • Developing local networks of agricultural education; and • Understanding and sharing the wealth of African farmer knowledge. To date, most AGRA grants have focused on promoting development and marketing of improved germplasm. Of about $80 million in grants that had been provided by the end of March 2009, $2.9 million was targeted to soil health research. The emphasis of AGRA’s Soil Health Initiative will be on promoting integrated soil fertility management. This may include promotion of “smart” fertilizer subsidies and other actions to increase effective use of inorganic fertilizers in Africa, as well as promotion of complementary organic practices. 4.1.10. Sub-regional and national level strategies and policies As noted above, many of the MEAs and regional initiatives involve consultations and development of strategies and plans at a sub-regional level. These have involved the Regional 42 Economic Communities (RECs) (e.g., in the CAADP roundtable process) and other sub-regional bodies appropriate to the issue (e.g., CILSS and IGAD in developing strategies for adapting to climate variability and change). The primary focus of all of these agreements and initiatives is at the national level, where specific strategies, policies and plans must be developed and implemented. At the national level, strategies and programs related to climate change and SLM must be integrated with other key strategies, policies and processes such as countries’ poverty reduction strategies, agricultural and rural development strategies, national environmental and land policies, medium term expenditure frameworks, annual budgetary processes, and others. Achieving harmonization of all of these different strategies and policies, and translating them into specific budgets and activities that are effectively implemented, monitored and evaluated within the governance processes of governments at different levels, is a major challenge. Addressing this challenge has been a major emphasis of TerrAfrica, the UNCCD and CAADP in their efforts to promote development of Country Strategic Investment Frameworks for SLM that are well mainstreamed within the overarching strategies and ongoing planning and budgetary processes of governments. As indicated above, substantial progress has been made in this regard in several countries, but much remains to be done. Similar efforts to achieve harmonization of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities with broader government strategies and governance processes are being pursued under the framework of the UNFCCC; for example, in the process of developing the NAPAs. More work will be needed to ensure that the policies and programs promoting SLM and those promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation are coherent and synergistic with each other, as well as with other government strategies, policies, and processes. 4.2. Opportunities and Constraints to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change through SLM Key messages The major current opportunities to increase funding for climate mitigation and adaptation through SLM include o increased use of the CDM to finance afforestation and reforestation (A/R) projects; 43 o increased use of voluntary carbon markets and carbon mitigation funds to test and demonstrate methodologies for a wider range of AFOLU activities; o increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities that have been prioritized by countries’ NAPAs; o increased funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation through programs promoting SLM in Africa; and o increased integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, including SLM, into development strategies of African governments and donors. Major new opportunities to support climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM may arise as a result of development of a cap and trade system in the United States, and inclusion of REDD and AFOLU projects in the post-Kyoto CDM framework. The prospects for these opportunities are uncertain, however. The main constraints to expanded use of the CDM to support SLM in the present framework include CDM eligibility restrictions; high transactions costs of registering and certifying CDM projects; low prices for certified emissions reductions (CERs), especially for A/R projects; long time lags in achieving CERs; uncertainty about the benefits of projects and the future of the CDM; and land tenure insecurity in many African contexts. These constraints are exacerbated by the limited technical, financial and organizational capacities of key actors in SSA. Many of the same constraints apply to supporting AFOLU investments through voluntary and other compliance carbon markets, although to a lesser degree in some cases. Constraints to increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities for climate adaptation include the limited size of these funds; lack of coordination among key government ministries; lack of technical and human capacity to implement adaptation activities; and others. Challenges to U.S. participation in the global carbon market include the political challenge of achieving ratification of a post-Kyoto treaty; concerns about the effectiveness and risks of emissions reductions purchased from developing countries; and possible opposition by U.S. lobby groups to offset payments to foreign land users. Challenges to REDD payments include the technical difficulties and costs of defining baselines and assuring additionality; concerns about leakages; potential adverse 44 incentives caused by such payments; concerns about the fairness of paying countries with a poor record of protecting forests and not paying those that have protected their forests; possible negative impacts on poor people, especially where they have insecure land and forest tenure; and concerns about flooding the carbon market with cheap offsets. Many of the same challenges will affect payments for AFOLU activities. Many of these concerns are likely to be less problematic than for REDD payments, except the size of transaction costs relative to the value of payments per hectare. Given the low payments per hectare possible for many AFOLU activities, projects will need to focus on promoting profitable AFOLU activities by addressing other constraints to adoption, such as lack of technical, financial and organizational capacity. 4.2.1. Opportunities There are many opportunities to both mitigate and adapt to climate change in SSA through sustainable land use and management approaches, such as those discussed in previous sections. In the present environment, the major funding opportunities include increased use of the CDM to finance afforestation, reforestation and other projects that promote sustainable land management10 and meet the criteria of the CDM; increased use of voluntary carbon markets and the various carbon mitigation funds to test and demonstrate project methodologies for a wider range of AFOLU activities in SSA, such as agroforestry, conservation tillage, improved rangeland management, and REDD; increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities that have been prioritized in African countries’ NAPAs; increased funding for SLM activities supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation in SSA through the TerrAfrica partnership, UNCCD, CAADP, AGRA, and other publicly and privately funded programs promoting sustainable land and water management in SSA; and 10 For example, CDM rural energy projects could potentially contribute to SLM by reducing demand for fuelwood, thus reducing degradation of forests and woodlands caused by tree cutting for fuelwood. However, a review of the CDM project pipeline and approved methodologies did not identify any projects or methodologies that would clearly have this impact (UNEP Risoe 2009). The only approved methodologies for projects to improve household energy efficiency are related to distribution of energy efficient light bulbs or manufacture of energy efficient refrigerators, while projects and methodologies for improving the efficiency of energy supply are oriented towards industrial uses. 45 increased integration of climate change adaptation and mitigation activities, including SLM investments, into the broader development and poverty reduction strategies and programs of African governments and in multilateral and bilateral ODA. The commitment of governments and development partners to substantially increase funding for agricultural research and development in Africa, as advocated in the 2008 World Development Report and in line with the Maputo Declaration and the CAADP agenda, represents a particularly important opportunity for achieving increased SLM investment for climate change mitigation and adaptation, if these activities are fully integrated into the agricultural development strategies of African countries and development partners. In pursuing these opportunities, it will be essential to continue to build on the momentum that has been established by partnerships and coalitions such as TerrAfrica, strengthening the linkages among organizations traditionally focused more on climate change, biodiversity or other environmental issues; those traditionally focused more on land degradation and sustainable land management issues; and those traditionally focused more on agricultural productivity issues. Success will depend greatly upon the ability of governments, donors, civil society organizations, the private sector and land users to work together to achieve the synergies that are possible among the objectives of mitigating and adapting to climate change and variability, promoting sustainable management of land and other natural resources, ensuring biodiversity conservation, increasing agricultural productivity, and reducing poverty in SSA. In the future, many new opportunities to expand these efforts may become available. Particularly important are opportunities that may result from the post-Kyoto treaty on climate change. Among the exciting new opportunities are the potential development of a cap and trade system in the United States, and inclusion of REDD and AFOLU projects in the post-Kyoto CDM framework. We discuss each of these opportunities briefly. Involvement of the United States in climate mitigation With the election of President Barack Obama and Democratic majorities to both houses of Congress in November, 2008, the prospects for the United States to ratify a post-Kyoto treaty on climate change appear to have significantly improved. President Obama has announced that one of the top priorities of his administration will be addressing U.S. energy security and global 46 climate change by establishing a cap and trade system for carbon emissions. The president’s proposal envisions reducing GHG emissions by selected industries (representing about 80 percent of estimated U.S. emissions) by 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent lower by 2050. Under the plan, the government would auction GHG emission permits to these industries. According to one estimate, the price of these allowances would average about $14 per tCO2e allowance in the first year of implementation (2012) and would increase to about $16.50 per allowance by 2020 (http://www.carbonoffsetsdaily.com/usa/carbon-costs-underobama-cap-and-trade-4953.htm), although there is of course great uncertainty about what impacts the proposal would have on carbon market prices. A U.S. cap and trade system would likely allow offsets from a broader set of AFOLU activities than are allowed under the CDM. The United States has historically favored inclusion of such activities in carbon compliance markets, and leading bills that have been proposed in the U.S. Congress would include such activities. For example, the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner climate security bill in the Senate directs that several AFOLU activities should be considered for emission offsets, including altered tillage practices; winter cover cropping, continuous cropping and other means to increase the biomass returned to the soil instead of winter fallowing; and conversion of cropland to rangeland. The implications of a U.S. cap and trade system for developing countries are not yet clear, however, as it will depend on whether offsets from projects in developing countries through the CDM or another mechanism would be allowed. If they are allowed, one estimate is that this could result in trade of 1 billion of offsets (tCO2e) per year with developing countries (larger than the total volume of CDM exchanges in 2007), worth about $10 billion (http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/indian-firms-may-capitalise-on-obamas-cleanenergy-drive/). Based on analysis of the two cap and trade bills that had advanced the furthest in the last Congress (Lieberman – Warner and Bingaman – Specter) and their provisions for international offsets, Capoor and Ambrosi (2008) estimate that the potential increased demand for offsets in the global carbon market from U.S. enactment of such proposals could be in the range of 400 – 900 Mt CO2e by 2020. This is of the same order of magnitude as the total volume of the CDM market in 2007 (Table 4.1). Such a large increase in demand for emission offsets obviously could have large impacts on the global carbon market. However, the prices initially predicted by some observers for these 47 allowances and offsets are within the range of prices currently observed for CERs under the CDM. It may be that transactions costs and uncertainties affecting the CDM market will continue to keep prices for CERs low in the future and hence limit farmers’ incentives to participate, although prices are likely to be higher with official U.S. participation in the carbon market than without it (as long as offsets from other countries are allowed). Furthermore, U.S. cap and trade legislation may restrict the prices allowable for emission offsets to no more than a maximum amount (e.g., $20 per tCO2e). With limited increase in carbon market prices, and given the very small number of projects related to SLM in SSA under the current CDM, even a substantial expansion of the CDM market may have small impacts on such activities in SSA, unless other changes to the CDM are enacted in the post-Kyoto treaty. Beyond the impacts on the volume and prices of trades in the global carbon market, U.S. leadership in climate change mitigation and adaptation activities could mean substantially greater commitments of U.S. foreign assistance to support such activities in SSA and other developing regions. This might prove to have larger impacts on support for SLM activities related to climate change in SSA in the near to medium term than the global market impact of U.S. ratification of a post-Kyoto treaty. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation The 2007 Bali Action Plan, which was adopted at 13th session of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC in Bali, Indonesia, established a process for developing the post-Kyoto treaty and specifically proposed consideration of payments for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).11 The potential magnitude of such payments is very large. According to one estimate, global REDD markets could be as large as $46 billion, assuming a carbon price of $30 per tCO2 and that annual deforestation rates are reduced by 50% (Figure 4-1). With more conservative (and probably more realistic) assumptions about reductions in deforestation rates and carbon prices the size of this market would be smaller, but still could be very substantial. For example, with a carbon price of $10 per tCO2 and assuming a 11 Among other actions to mitigate GHG emissions, the Bali Action Plan urged consideration of “Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries”. 48 10 percent reduction in the annual rate of deforestation, the REDD market would still be about $3 billion. SSA has a large potential to contribute to reduced GHG emissions through REDD. According to Nabuurs, et (2007), Africa’s potential for GHG mitigation through reduced deforestation is 1,160 Mt CO2 per year in 2030 (at costs of $100 per t CO2 or less), representing 29% of the global total; while reduced forest degradation resulting from improve forest management could reduce emissions by 100 Mt CO2 per year. If half of these potential emissions reductions were achieved, this could result in payments of more than $6 billion per year, assuming a carbon price of $10 per tCO2. Most of the potential for REDD is in humid forest areas, where carbon losses from deforestation and forest degradation are greatest. Probably less than 10% of the potential REDD market is in drylands (Ecosecurities and Global Mechanism 2008). REDD payments could have many beneficial impacts on ecosystem services in SSA resulting from reducing deforestation and forest degradation, such as preserving biodiversity, protecting watersheds, and reducing soil erosion, sedimentation of watercourses and threats of floods. They may also be used to help to preserve and improve the livelihoods of forest dependent people, and they provide potentially large new funding sources to help finance rural development investments. However, there are also many potential challenges and constraints that may limit how well such benefits are achieved, and whether they reach poor people. These are discussed in a subsequent subsection. Many design issues will need to be decided in designing a REDD payment system. Among these are questions about the scope of the system (what resources, activities and countries are eligible), the baseline that reduced deforestation will be measured against (how it will be measured, over what time period and spatial scale), how the payments will be distributed (where and to whom, what assets will be rewarded, at what scale), and how the payments will be financed (whether by a market, a fund, or a combination of mechanisms) (Parker, et al. 2008). The impacts of whatever system is adopted (if any) will of course depend on how these issues are resolved. For example, if payments are made for sub-national level projects, the ease of monitoring and verifying reductions may be greater and the developmental impacts easier to assure, but problems of leakage (shifting of deforestation to nearby sub-national areas) may be greater. If a market mechanism is used to finance payments (as with the CDM), this may harness 49 greater financial resources than if financing depends on a fund established by donor governments and multilateral organizations; but the initial costs of capacity strengthening and project development may prove difficult for project developers in developing countries to finance if only a market mechanism is in place. Many proposals for REDD payment systems have already been developed by governments and by non-governmental organizations, with differing propositions on these issues. Almost all propose that REDD systems should include payments for both reduced deforestation and reduced forest degradation, while a few propose going further to also include carbon enhancement activities (Ibid.). Most propose that reductions should be measured at the national level, while some propose measuring reductions at a sub-national level (combined with national level measurement) or at a more global level. Most propose that reductions should be measured relative to deforestation rates during an historical period, while some advocate measuring relative to projected future deforestation and degradation, and one advocates measuring relative to current levels. Many of those that advocate measuring relative to historic rates propose allowing for adjustments for expected development, which brings those closer to the proposals to use projected rates (Ibid.). With regard to the distribution of payments, most proposals do not specify an explicit distributional mechanism, which implies that payments would be distributed solely on the basis of emission reductions. Some proposals argue for some explicit distribution of payments to countries who would not benefit much from a REDD payment scheme, such as low emitting developing countries. With regard to funding mechanisms, most proposals advocate multiple mechanisms, with special funds used to finance capacity strengthening and project development costs and markets providing payments once projects are established. Agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) As with REDD, AFOLU activities have large potential to impact GHG levels in the atmosphere. Smith, et al. (2008) estimate that GHG reductions of more than 5 billion t CO2e per year by 2030 are possible globally through improved agricultural and land management practices, assuming carbon prices of up to $100 per t CO2e (Figure 4-2). Most of these reductions are from soil and biomass carbon sequestration activities, including restoration of organic/peaty soils, improved cropland management, improved grazing land management, and restoration of degraded lands, which together account for more than three-fourths of the total reduction from agriculture and 50 land management. The technical potential for mitigation through such activities in Africa is estimated to be about one-fifth of the global total – 970 Mt CO2e per year by 2030 – while the economic potential (assuming carbon prices of up to $20 per t CO2e) in Africa is estimated to be 265 Mt CO2e (Smith 2008). This is nearly four times the level of emissions reductions expected in 2012 from all CDM projects (including projects in the pipeline) in SSA, and one third of total emission reductions purchased under the CDM globally in 2007. Almost all of this economic potential for reductions in Africa is from agricultural and land management options in subSaharan Africa (Table 4-2). The potential flow of funds to SSA for such activities is thus more than $5 billion per year, assuming a price of $20 per t CO2e for soil carbon sequestration. With lower carbon prices, this potential would be less, but still appears likely to be on the order of at least $2 billion per year. These impacts are in addition to the potential impacts of afforestation or reforestation efforts in Africa, which are estimated by the IPCC to be able to sequester 665 Mt CO2 in 2030 (at opportunity costs of up to $100 per tCO2) (Nabuurs, et al. 2007). If half of this potential were achieved at payments of $10 per tCO2, this would result in payments of more than $3 billion per year. Combining the potential for REDD and AFOLU activities in Africa, the total emissions reduction potential is estimated to be nearly 2.2 billion tCO2e in 2030. This is equivalent to 6.5% of total GHG emissions in 2000 (33.7 billion tCO2e (Baumert, Herzog and Pershing 2005)); a considerable impact even if this will not solve GHG emissions by itself. Considering the potential payments for REDD and for improved agricultural land management practices discussed above, together with the potential for afforestation and reforestation payments, total payments of more than $10 billion per year for these activities in Africa (assuming only 50% of the potential reductions are achieved) appear possible. Unfortunately, consideration of including a broader set AFOLU activities in the postKyoto treaty appears to be less far advanced than consideration of REDD payments. The Bali Action Plan made no mention of AFOLU activities among activities to consider for climate change mitigation or adaptation. This oversight may reflect scientific uncertainties about the level of carbon sequestered by agricultural and land management practices or concerns about the ability to monitor and verify emissions reductions at low enough cost, contributing to skepticism among the COP of the UNFCCC about the potential and feasibility of payments for AFOLU 51 activities (these challenges are discussed in the next subsection). However, the large technical and economic potential estimated by the IPCC for AFOLU activities and demonstration of the feasibility of contracts for AFOLU projects by the Chicago Climate Exchange can help to counter such skepticism. Another reason for the lack of mention of this option may simply be a lack of sufficient involvement in earlier UNFCCC meetings of persons and organizations focusing on the potentials of SLM to help mitigate and adapt to climate change. This can be addressed in the current UNFCCC Copenhagen process by involvement of the UNCCD, coalitions such as TerrAfrica and NEPAD, and representatives of African and other developing countries supportive of recognizing and building on the synergies between SLM and climate change mitigation and adaptation. 4.2.2. Challenges and constraints There are many challenges and constraints to achieving the potential of these opportunities. We consider first the constraints applicable under the current Kyoto protocol, and then constraints to expanded realization of the potentials under a new post-Kyoto climate change regime. Constraints to expansion of afforestation/reforestation CDM projects in SSA The restriction of CDM eligibility of AFOLU activities to include only afforestation or reforestation (A/R) projects is of course a major barrier. But there are many other challenges and constraints limiting development and implementation of A/R CDM projects. These include the transaction costs of registering, verifying and certifying projects relative to carbon prices; the temporary nature of CERs awarded for A/R projects and requirements that apply only to A/R CDM projects; uncertainty about the benefits of projects and the future of the CDM; the length of time required before CERs can be awarded for A/R projects; the “sunk” (unrecoverable) nature of costs of many of the investments involved (e.g., costs for investments in nonmarketable assets such as communal land), which tends to inhibit investments in the face of uncertainty; and insecurity of property rights, which can undermine the ability of land based investments such as reforestation, or lead to negative impacts on poor households and communities (Baalman and Schlamadinger 2008; Bryan, et al. 2008; Jindal, et al. 2008). 52 Transaction costs can prohibit the viability of many projects, especially small ones. Most project developers responding to a recent study of the cost of AFOLU mitigation projects indicated that the cost of registering carbon units with the CDM were greater than $200,000, roughly twice the cost of certification in voluntary markets (Baalman and Schlamadinger 2008). According to the project developers interviewed, the high costs of CDM registration are due largely to the need to use expensive specialists to develop methodologies and project design documents, because of the complexity of the issues and procedures involved (Ibid.). Among the complex issues that must be addressed are the needs to show “additionality” of the investment (i.e., that it increases carbon sequestration relative to what would have occurred in absence of the project) and that “leakages” (shifting of carbon emissions to other locations as a result of the project) are avoided. Simplified procedures are allowed for addressing these issues for small scale projects (i.e., use of default values or assumptions to address them), but even so, the main methodology used for small scale A/R CDM projects typically requires completion of a 30 page document, comparable to large scale methodologies in other sectors (Ibid.). Besides the costs of complying with such requirements, lack of availability of qualified experts to assist with developing project methodologies and plans, or to validate and verify project plans and implementation, can also be a major constraint, especially in SSA. Because many of these transaction costs are relatively independent of project size, they result in higher average costs per unit of emission reduction in smaller projects. According to one study, transaction costs of CDM projects range from $1.48 per tCO2e for large projects to as high as $14.78 per tCO2 for small projects (Michaelowa and Jotzo 2005). With prices for CERs falling below 10 Euros ($12.70) in late February, 2009 (http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1472), it is clear that such high transaction costs make many potential CDM projects non-viable. As a result, few new CDM projects are being considered in the present depressed price environment (Ibid.). The problem of high transaction costs relative to CER prices is worse for A/R projects because A/R projects do not qualify for regular CERs, due to the impermanence of the emission reductions achieved (since planted trees may be cut or destroyed by fires). Two separate types of CERs are applied to A/R projects, either a temporary CER (tCER) or a long-term CER (lCER). Current tCERs expire at the end of the current commitment period in 2012, while lCERs expire at the end of the project crediting period (e.g., 30 years) (Jindal, et al. 2008). Neither type of 53 CER can be carried over to subsequent commitment periods, and a buyer who retires an lCER credit bears the responsibility for CER replacement in the event of subsequent removals of planted trees or other violations of the agreement (Baalman and Schlamadinger 2008). As a result, the prices of tCERs and lCERs are substantially lower than regular CERs, with both typically valued at only about 25% of standard CERs (Ibid.). Contributing to these low prices is the fact that emission reductions from CDM A/R projects in developing countries are not accepted by the EU Emission Trading Scheme. Long time lags and uncertainty about receiving certification also inhibit development of CDM projects. Because of the time required for trees to become established, A/R projects typically require at least 5 years before they are eligible for certification. CDM verification requirements at subsequent five-year intervals can further delay creation of CER credits (Ibid.). Risks can also be very substantial for such projects, especially when effective collective action is required to assure adequate management of the project (e.g., to establish and protect tree plantations to ensure tree survival), and local capacities for such collective management may be limited. Such risks are compounded by uncertainties about the future of the CDM after the Kyoto agreement expires and about future prices of CERs in the global market. Combining these concerns with the sunk costs involved in financing such investments, the shortage of financial capital and technical expertise in countries of SSA, and insecurity of property rights in many areas of SSA, it is easy to understand why the number of CDM projects related to land management is so small. We discuss options to address these constraints in a later sub-section. All of these challenges and constraints do not imply that investing in A/R CDM is hopeless, particularly if there is financial and technical support from development partners to help overcome them. A/R projects can earn high private and social rates of return in Africa, despite these costs and barriers. For example, a recent evaluation of impacts of SLM project investments in Niger estimated that community tree plantations promoted by projects earn an average internal rate of return of at least 28 percent (Pender and Ndjeunga 2008). However, they estimated that including the value of carbon payments for such plantations would only increase the rate of return by a few percentage points (assuming a payment of $4.20 per tCO2 eq based on the rate offered by the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund for an afforestation project in Niger). The additionality of such project-promoted tree plantations is clear in Niger, given that very few 54 communities have a plantation without a project.12 Thus, even though projects may contribute little to the profitability of an A/R project, the involvement of the project may be essential in providing technical expertise, finance, and access to essential inputs such as seedlings, or by facilitating effective collective action. The potential for scaling up A/R or other SLM investments in Africa through the CDM (or otherwise) will depend on identifying such potentially profitable investments and helping to provide such essential inputs. Constraints to increased AFOLU investments through voluntary carbon markets Many of the constraints that apply to CDM investments also apply to the prospect of increasing AFOLU investments supported other compliance markets or by voluntary carbon markets, although to a different degree. For example, the transaction costs of obtaining certification of third party standards are still an important constraint, although the costs may not be as high as for CDM certification. Limited technical capacity of potential project developers and limited availability of qualified experts to validate proposals and certify projects also constrain the ability to develop and implement projects and certify compliance with voluntary standards in SSA. Some of the constraints imposed by the CDM regime are being addressed through voluntary market development. As noted earlier, voluntary markets are not limited to only A/R projects, and have been used to support projects related to other AFOLU activities such as conservation tillage and grassland management, and for REDD activities. Time lags and the need for initial finance are being addressed through financing provided by carbon mitigation funds. The need for future verification of project emission reductions does not prevent marketing of emissions reductions in the near term, although buffer reserves of non-tradable credits are required to insure against future uncertainties and possible reversals. For example, the VCS applies a buffer incorporating a longevity component, which is the same across projects and declines over time, and a project specific risk component based on assessments by auditors during each verification (Baalman and Schlamadinger 2008). The longevity buffer requirement can be as large as 30% in the first year of the project while risk buffers can be as large as 60% (Ibid.). 12 The same is not true of farmer-managed natural regeneration of trees, which is a widespread traditional practice in Niger (Larwanou, et al. 2006; Pender and Ndjeunga 2008). 55 However, the limited extent of such projects in SSA suggests that transaction costs and limited technical and financial capacities in SSA, combined with even lower carbon prices on the voluntary market than in the CDM market, continue to be major barriers to expansion of these projects in SSA. As a result of limited technical and financial capacities as well as limited experience with such projects in SSA, the perceived risks for such projects are likely higher in SSA than in developed countries, further reducing the demand and potential price for such offsets in the voluntary market. These perceived risks can be reduced over time as a result of investments in increasing the technical and financial capacities of project developers and intermediaries in SSA, and as experience with such projects increases. Constraints to expanding funding for adaptation The limited size of available adaptation funds compared to the need is the most important constraint. Besides lack of funds, many other constraints also inhibit implementation of the NAPAs, as identified by many of these documents themselves. These include in many cases the complex and difficult procedures required to obtain funds from the available funding sources; lack of awareness of the problems and adaptation options among policy makers and the general population; lack of political will and support of policy makers; lack of coordination among key government ministries involved in promoting adaptation; the need for involvement of key ministries such as finance ministries; lack of scientific and technological capacity to identify, monitor and learn from actions taken to facilitate adaptation; lack of human capacity to implement adaptation activities at all levels, including government, the private sector, civil society and local communities; failure to sufficiently involve local communities and farmers in planning actions to address climate change; and the constraints underlying many of these problems in SSA, including poverty, low levels of education, poor infrastructure, governance problems and others. These challenges and constraints can and are being addressed by efforts of governments in SSA, their development partners, civil society, local communities and the private sector to develop their technical and financial capacities to identify, plan and implement programs and projects for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to integrate such programs and projects with the broader development strategies and policies being pursued in these countries. Partnerships such as TerrAfrica and NEPAD/CAADP are playing a critical role in this process 56 by facilitating development of Country Strategy Investment Frameworks for SLM that are integrated with African countries’ development, and supporting the development of financial and technical capacities to implement these frameworks. This is a long term process, and success is likely to be incremental, although substantial progress is already occurring in many countries. Many of these constraints, as well as additional challenges and constraints, may inhibit realization of the large potential new opportunities for the post-Kyoto period that were discussed above. We consider these next. Challenges to United States participation in climate markets The political feasibility of U.S. ratification of a post-Kyoto climate treaty is by no means certain, although the chances of success have improved. In the last Congress, the Warner – Lieberman cap and trade bill received only 48 yes votes in the Senate, far short of the 60 votes needed to allow passage of a bill in the Senate and the two-thirds (67) votes required to ratify a treaty. Especially in the current deep economic recession, any proposal that increases the cost of energy will be seen by many as a new “tax” and will face strong opposition. Arguments on the merits and difficulties of a cap and trade scheme may undermine support for participation in a post-Kyoto treaty or for continuing or expanding the CDM as a part of a treaty, even among some advocates of measures to address climate change. For example, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a critical report on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the CDM that, although acknowledging the positive impacts that these regulatory schemes have had in promoting development of the carbon market, argues that the impacts of these schemes on emission reductions and economic development are unclear, because of problems such as high transaction costs, difficulty of demonstrating additionality of CDM projects, and the short term nature of the CDM (GAO 2008). Such arguments may be persuasive with many members of the U.S. Congress. Hence, even if a treaty or law is passed establishing a cap and trade system in the United States, such concerns may limit the extent to which emissions offsets purchased from developing countries will be allowed. There is also a risk that farm advocacy groups in the United States (and other developed countries) will seek to have all offset payments made domestically, to increase the benefits for their own farmers, even if this increases the cost of achieving emissions reductions. If there are 57 doubts about the verifiability and permanence of carbon offsets in developing countries, environmental groups may also prefer to restrict offsets to domestic sources, which may be seen as more easily verified. Challenges to REDD payments There are many challenges to the effective use of REDD payments to mitigate climate change and benefit countries and poor people in SSA. There will be serious technical difficulties and costs of defining baselines and measuring and verifying reduced deforestation and forest degradation. Measurement of changes in forest degradation, as opposed to deforestation (which can be measured using remote sensing techniques), is likely to be especially difficult. A particularly thorny problem is the issue of additionality, which hinges on the question of what level of deforestation would have occurred without the payments. Addressing this issue is important not only to assure the effectiveness of the payments in reducing GHG emissions, but also because this determines the level of payments to be made. If a country with a high rate of past deforestation is paid to reduce future deforestation rates below that level, large payments could be paid even though no actual reduction in emissions occurred as a result, if the rate of deforestation would have declined anyway (for example, because of a halt in road building in forested areas that was planned even without the payments). The hypothetical nature of the counterfactual situation (what would deforestation have been without the payments) may make REDD payments seem to be arbitrary and ineffective to many observers. A related issue is the potential for adverse incentives to be caused by REDD payments. If payments are made based on changes relative to current or recent deforestation rates (at the time of treaty implementation), this could create incentives for countries to promote or allow increased deforestation until the post-Kyoto treaty is ratified and begins to be implemented. This problem could be addressed by advocating and using a historical baseline that is before the current date, so that decisions related to deforestation made from now until the new treaty begins implementation could not affect future REDD payments. However, the longer the time period between the historical reference period and whenever the future treaty begins to be implemented, the less likely it is that the reference period will adequately represent what future deforestation would have been without the payments, especially in rapidly developing (or economically declining) countries. This problem could be addressed to some extent by predicting future 58 deforestation rates based on some kind of model, although how well this will represent the counterfactual will not be observable, so concerns about arbitrariness of the payments and their impacts will remain. Another political and moral concern relates to the fairness of the distribution of REDD payments. Countries that have made efforts to reduce their deforestation rates in the past may see little benefit from a REDD payment scheme, while countries that have caused high deforestation rates through poor or uncaring policies may receive high payments.13 Many may regard such a scheme as unfair, even if the adverse incentives problem can be avoided. This concern is why several of the proposals made to date for REDD payment schemes incorporate some kind of distributional mechanism. Such distributional payments, while helping to assure the political feasibility of a scheme, do nothing to reduce emissions and hence reduce the cost effectiveness of the scheme. The possibility of leakages is another serious challenge, especially if payments are made for projects in sub-national regions or in small countries. Payments to reduce deforestation and degradation in one location may result in shifting the location of deforestation and degradation to another location, whether it is elsewhere in the same country or in other countries. To help address this problem, it may work better to make payments for REDD in larger geographical units, whether nations or even supra-national units, especially among small neighboring forested countries (for example, in Central America). However, making REDD payments to larger geographical and political units may undermine the goal of using such payments to help improve the livelihoods of poor people (more on this below). Furthermore, leakages can still occur even between countries or continents that are distant from each other. To the extent that such payments are effective in increasing the prices of forest products or other products that are promoted by deforestation (for example, cattle in Latin America), market level effects may cause leakages even to areas far away from where REDD payments are applied. For example, if REDD payments cause the price of Brazilian cattle to increase as a result of reduced forest land available for ranching, cattle ranching for export markets may shift to other countries or continents, possibly contributing to increased deforestation in those locations. 13 Of course, this criticism also can be applied to payments for emissions reductions through other types of projects, such as energy projects; i.e., countries that have polluted more in the past qualify for larger payments. 59 REDD payments also could have negative impacts on poor people in developing countries. The prospects of receiving large payments may encourage governments or powerful private interests to forcibly evict land users from forests and forest margin areas, with severe negative impacts on their well being. Such problems are particularly likely to arise where communities and households do not have secure tenure to their land, and where corruption is a serious problem, both of which are common in forest areas of many developing countries. Such negative impacts could be offset or even outweighed by investments in improving the livelihoods of poor rural people, especially those who depend on forests. Whether such investments will actually take place and be effective in helping poor people depends greatly on the real (as opposed to the stated) objectives of policy makers or other elite groups (that is, whether benefiting the rural poor is a real objective supported by political will), on the extent of corruption, on the capacity of governments to identify and implement policies and investments that will benefit the affected rural poor, and on the costs of carrying out such policies and investments. Unfortunately, the developing countries that have the most to gain from a REDD payment scheme also tend to have greater problems of corruption and weak capacity (Figure 43). A final concern with REDD payments is that they may substantially increase the supply of available offsets, flooding the market and crowding out other emissions reductions (Ecosecurities and Global Mechanism 2008). This is not necessarily a problem if the emissions reductions from REDD are real and additive, if the objective is to obtain the most emissions reductions at the lowest cost (which is the main economic rationale for allowing emissions trading). But, as noted above, assuring the additionality of emissions reductions purchased through REDD payments will be difficult. This may undermine the effectiveness of emissions reduction efforts globally (if the reductions are not additive) and hence may erode support for the entire cap and trade system if the targeted global reductions in GHG emissions are not achieved as a result. Solutions to this problem could be to keep the REDD market separate from other carbon markets (that is, not allow REDD payments to offset other emissions reductions), support REDD payments through a separate fund rather than carbon markets, or discount the value of REDD emissions reductions relative to other emissions reductions considered to be more certain and verifiable (for example, one ton of CO2e reduction through REDD could be set to equal 0.5 ton 60 of CO2e reduction in the EU ETS or CDM). The first two options have the advantage of limiting the potential negative impacts of REDD payments on other carbon markets, but will greatly reduce the total amount of potential payments. The last option could maintain a large market for REDD emissions reductions, albeit at an arbitrarily set discount, and would reduce but not eliminate the risk to other carbon markets. A sequence of the first and third options could also be used, with the first (segmented market) option used to allow price discovery in the REDD market, which could be used to establish a market-based discount factor to apply in the third option. Alternatively, the price for REDD payments in voluntary markets, where trades based on REDD projects are allowed, could be used to establish a discount factor. Challenges to payments for AFOLU activities Incorporating payments for AFOLU activities such as conservation tillage, agroforestry, and rangeland management into a post-Kyoto regime and successfully reaching small scale farmers in SSA would also face many challenges and constraints. The transactions costs of establishing projects, monitoring and verifying emissions reductions could be prohibitive relative to the potential payments that farmers might receive. For example, consider the range of emissions reductions credit offered by the CCX for conservation tillage (0.5 to 1.5 t CO2e per hectare) and a carbon price of $5 to $10 per t CO2e. With this range of credits and price of carbon, farmers could earn between $2.50 and $15 per hectare for adopting conservation tillage. This may well be worth it in terms of the farmers’ opportunity costs, since in many cases conservation tillage is more profitable than conventional tillage. Nevertheless, the transaction costs of participating in a payment scheme could easily swamp the value of the payment, especially for small farmers with only a few hectares of land. For small farmers in Africa (and elsewhere) to benefit substantially from AFOLU payments, the transaction costs per farmer must be very small. This means that expensive measurements for verification, such as soil and biomass samples to measure carbon sequestration levels on individual farms, are not likely to be feasible. A less costly approach, if measurement is desired, would be to have community or farmer organizations participate in a payment scheme, and use a sampling approach within these organizations to measure and verify carbon sequestration. Even less costly would be to establish norms for soil carbon sequestration achieved by particular types of land management practices, such as used by the CCX and the 61 VCS, rather than trying to measure soil and biomass carbon levels. Given that carbon sequestration depends on many factors besides the land management practice (for example, the type of soil and the local climate), it would be important to establish norms for emissions reductions due to particular practices under different biophysical conditions, drawing upon existing and, as needed, new research. There will still be monitoring and verification costs required, but these could focus on monitoring changes in land management practices and assessing the applicable biophysical context, to establish the appropriate emission reduction norm to apply. Efforts to develop such a monitoring approach for soil carbon are underway, and these offer promise of achieving a cost effective approach to enable small farmers in developing countries to benefit from AFOLU payments.14 Given the importance of managing such payments through farmer or community organizations to minimize transaction costs per farmer, an important constraint for implementing these will be the presence and effectiveness of such organizations, and how well they serve the interests of the rural poor. In most of SSA, farmer and community organizations are not well developed, and in some cases have been undermined by policies that politicized or manipulated such organizations. Developing the capacity of and people’s confidence in such organizations is a long term need that is important in general for achieving rural development in SSA, and not only for implementing payments for climate mitigation or adaptation. But where such organizations exist and are effective, or could become effective with moderate support for capacity strengthening, payment schemes for AFOLU activities (as well as REDD and other climate mitigation activities) could provide valuable new opportunities for these organizations to provide benefits to their members while promoting broader social and environmental benefits. Many of the challenges and constraints affecting REDD payments and other payment schemes under the CDM would also apply to AFOLU payments. For example, concerns about additionality and leakages of the impacts of such payments must be addressed. Assuring additionality appears easier in this case than in the case of REDD payments, since it is mainly a matter of showing that farmers begin to use practices that they weren’t using before the payment scheme (such as minimum tillage), rather than trying to project how much deforestation would have occurred without the payments. Of course, there is still the problem that the counterfactual 14 For example, a workshop on Reduced Emissions and Adaptation in Landscapes (REAL) held at the World Bank in January 2009 reviewed methodologies for measuring and monitoring soil carbon and proposed a practical approach to monitoring soil carbon, along the lines suggested here (Sara Scherr, personal communication). 62 is not known. For example, even if farmers did not use minimum tillage before a payment scheme, it doesn’t prove that they wouldn’t have started using it even without the payments, especially if the practice is profitable without the payments. Indeed, given the small value of payments per hectare that are likely to be available for most AFOLU activities and the transaction costs required to obtain them, AFOLU payments are likely to have at best a marginal impact on the profitability of such practices.15 For widescale adoption to occur, AFOLU projects therefore will need to focus on promoting practices that are already profitable. Assuring additionality in this case will require emphasizing promotion of practices that are limited by other constraints than low profitability, such as farmers’ lack of awareness of the practices or their lack of technical, financial or organizational capacity to use them effectively. Hence, rather than making payments directly to farmers, AFOLU payment schemes are more likely to be effective (and to limit transaction costs) if the payments are used to support development of effective agricultural extension or credit mechanisms or farmer organizations that can overcome such constraints. Potential problems of leakages resulting from AFOLU payments also appear to be less of a concern than leakages potentially caused by REDD payments. If a group of farmers begins to use conservation tillage or some other sustainable land management practice on their own land, it does not seem likely that this would cause other farmers to start using less sustainable land management practices. One exception to this could be if the new management practice causes farmers to obtain lower yields, which might require them to farm more extensively, potentially causing land degradation as cultivation expands into rangelands or forest areas. Another source of leakage could be if the new SLM practice involves restricting access to some resource (for example, controlled access to grazing areas), which could cause livestock herders to shift to other areas, potentially causing degradation of other grazing areas. Such potential negative impacts of promoting particular land management practices need to be carefully considered within the context in which the payment scheme is used. Applied research and knowledge management would be needed to better understand how and in what contexts such impacts are likely to occur, and the lessons incorporated into the design of payment schemes. 15 Agroforestry, especially in more humid areas, is an exception because of large above ground biomass potential. For example, the farmers participating in the Nhambita Community Carbon Project in Mozambique receive a cash payment of $243 per ha over seven years; averaging $34.70 per household per year and representing a significant increase in cash incomes for most households (Jindal, et al. 2008). 63 Applied research and knowledge management would also be needed to assess impacts of AFOLU payments on the rural poor in different contexts, to help ensure that unintended negative impacts do not arise, and that any negative impacts that do arise are mitigated. For example, payments that support restricting access to grazing land could have negative impacts on livestock herders. It will be important to use an inclusive process when negotiating agreements for such schemes, to ensure that all affected groups have a voice and can find ways to avoid or compensate for costs imposed on particular groups. 4.3. Options to Address Opportunities and Constraints to Climate Mitigation and Adaptation through SLM in SSA Key messages Several options appear promising to exploit the opportunities and address the constraints to increasing climate mitigation and adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa through SLM activities: Advocate improvements in the post-Kyoto agreement that address these opportunities and constraints. Particular improvements to consider advocating include o Expanding eligibility in the CDM to include all activities that sequester carbon or reduce emissions of GHGs, including REDD and AFOLU activities; o Agreeing to national targets for GHG levels of developing countries, and use a full GHG national accounting approach to credit reductions relative to baselines; and o Increasing funding for adaptation measures. Simplify and improve the procedures to access funds under the CDM, adaptation funds and other relevant funds. Explore existing opportunities to increase participation in voluntary markets such as the CCX and VCS. Expand knowledge generation and outreach efforts on the problems of climate variability and change, land degradation, their linkages, and options for solution. Engage local community leaders, farmers and other land users in planning and rule making processes. 64 Promote increased coordination of efforts to address climate variability, climate change, and land degradation and integration with key government strategies and processes, including agricultural and environmental strategies. Expand investment in strengthening technical, organizational and human capacity relevant to climate and land management issues in SSA. Address specific policy, institutional and other constraints to SLM and climate change mitigation and adaptation at national and local level in the context of country strategic investment frameworks (CSIFs). 4.3.1. Advocate improvements in the post-Kyoto agreement In the post-Kyoto agreement, there are opportunities to substantially increase funding for SLM activities related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, but realizing these opportunities will require effective advocacy by stakeholders most concerned about achieving this. Ensuring the continuation of the CDM will be essential, including improvements to expand its scope and improve its accessibility to Africans. Three particularly important opportunities for this are to i) expand eligibility for the CDM to include all include all activities that sequester carbon or reduce emissions of GHGs, including REDD and AFOLU activities; ii) agree to national targets for GHG levels of all countries, including developing countries, and use a full GHG national accounting approach to credit reductions relative to baselines; and iii) increase funding for adaptation measures. Expand eligibility for the CDM to include REDD and AFOLU activities Making all activities that sequester carbon or reduce GHG emissions eligible for the CDM, including REDD and AFOLU activities, would dramatically increase the potential of the CDM to help promote SLM for climate change mitigation and adaptation in Africa and other developing regions. There has already been substantial progress towards developing a scheme for REDD payments, with many proposals already circulated and being discussed by major stakeholders. It is critical that the many challenges and constraints that could undermine the effectiveness of such payments or cause unintended negative consequences are adequately considered and addressed, and not allowed to undermine the potential of the approach. Potential problems of leakages and negative impacts on poor and vulnerable populations are particularly 65 important to address, so that the ultimate impacts on sustainable natural resource management and poverty reduction are as positive as possible. Given that they have comparable potential to REDD to help mitigate climate change, and probably greater potential to help improve rural livelihoods and facilitate adaptation, it is unfortunate and somewhat surprising that AFOLU activities have not received the same support in the UNFCCC process as REDD or other activities. Although there are difficult challenges and constraints that would affect the feasibility of payments for AFOLU activities, the previous discussion illustrates that these challenges are not likely to be any more difficult to address than those that face a REDD payment scheme (and in many cases may be easier to address). Active advocacy by African governments and other stakeholders concerned about SLM in SSA, including the UNCCD, CAADP, and TerrAfrica partners, will be essential to raise the profile of AFOLU payments so that they receive serious consideration. To the extent that such a coalition contributes to acceptance of REDD payments, it may also receive greater cooperation and support from other stakeholders that are more focused on promoting forestry activities but haven’t yet supported including AFOLU payments in the post-Kyoto agreement. If these overlapping but somewhat distinct groups of stakeholders join forces to effectively advocate both REDD and AFOLU payments, the chances of success for both initiatives are likely be greater. Agree to national GHG targets for developing countries and use national GHG accounting One major way to increase the contribution to climate change mitigation of farmers and other resource users in Africa and other developing regions would be for all countries, including developing countries, to agree to national GHG emission targets that are used as the basis for crediting emissions reductions. Such an approach is of course already applied to Annex I countries under the Kyoto protocol. Including targets for developing countries in a post-Kyoto agreement does not imply that developing countries would have to accept binding commitments to reduce GHG emissions that could retard their development and would be unfair (considering much higher GHG emissions per capita in developed countries). Targets could be based on projected increases in GHG emissions needed to achieve sustainable development, considering population and economic growth and available technologies and capacities of each country. A “no lose” approach could be used in which developing countries are credited if they achieve reductions in emissions below their target, but are not penalized if they fail to do so. A full 66 national carbon or GHG accounting approach would be used to monitor and verify emissions reductions below the targets. Suggestions of this nature have been proposed by a few groups (e.g., Trines, et al. 2006; The Terrestrial Carbon Group 2008). This approach would have the advantage of being comprehensive, including all GHG sources and sinks, including AFOLU, REDD and others. If offsets across different sources and sinks within and across countries are allowed, this would promote use of the most cost effective ways of reducing GHG emissions. By using national level accounting and including all countries in the system, problems of leakages of emissions within and across countries would be reduced. To the extent that baseline emission targets are well justified and reductions relative to those baselines real and verifiable, additionality of payments would be assured. However, there would be substantial challenges to overcome in order to enact and implement such an approach. Reaching agreement on country-specific GHG targets would be a major political challenge. Compounding this would be the technical difficulties of reliably measuring or estimating current and projected future GHG emissions, and political and administrative difficulties of achieving real emission reductions in ways that benefit poor people and avoid negative environmental tradeoffs. Assuring the additionality of payments for reductions below target GHG emissions levels would be difficult, especially where the technical and administrative difficulties are major hurdles. Absence of solid scientific data and consensus on the GHG emission impacts of various AFOLU practices or other activities in different contexts also could undermine confidence in the approach. These difficulties are likely to be especially challenging in the least developed countries where data, technical and administrative capacities are very limited. Given the challenges as well as potential of such an approach, it would be advisable to assess the potential of this approach in more detail, considering different options for its use. For example, considerations of political and technical feasibility may argue for limiting the application of this approach, at least initially, to certain countries and certain activities. If the feasibility of the approach could be established on such a pilot basis, it could subsequently be expanded to more countries and activities as warranted by the methods and capacities available. Increase adaptation funds 67 As shown earlier in this report, the level of funding available to support adaptation activities in developing countries is woefully inadequate compared to the need. This has important implications for the potential to finance SLM activities in SSA, since such activities have been identified as high priority in most of the NAPAs prepared by African countries. Although the funds available in the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund are projected to increase with the size of the CDM, these funds are still quite limited because of the limited scope of the CDM and the low 2% rate of assessment on CDM projects. Expanding the scope of CDM to include REDD and AFOLU activities potentially will substantially increase the amount of funds available for adaptation, and hence for SLM activities that are priority for adaptation (as well as other adaptation activities). This illustrates an additional synergy between climate change mitigation and adaptation, in which increased mitigation activities related to SLM contribute to additional funds for adaptation, some of which also will be used to promote SLM. Beyond expanding the scope of CDM, increasing the level of the levy on CDM projects for the Adaptation Fund could also be considered as an option to increase the size of this fund. 4.3.2. Simplify and improve procedures to access funds for climate mitigation and adaptation A common criticism of the CDM is the complexity, high transactions costs and uncertainty of procedures for registering these projects. Some complexity, transaction costs and uncertainty are of course unavoidable in any program that seeks to achieve additional and verifiable emission reductions or GHG sequestration. But it may be possible to reduce some of these burdens without greatly sacrificing these objectives though some improvements in procedures. An example of a change going in this direction is the option allowing Programmes of Activities (PoA) to act as umbrellas for groups of similar activities, thus helping to reduce transaction costs per activity. The requirements for PoA were approved by the Executive Board of the CDM at the end of 2007, so there is limited experience with these so far. As of January, 2009, only 16 PoA had been initiated, with all still in the validation stage, and none related to A/R activities (UNEP Risoe 2009). A recent survey of project developers found some who felt PoAs could help to streamline the process and make some projects feasible, while others felt that this does not solve the main problems with the CDM and that its impacts would be negligible (Baalman and Schlamadinger 2008). Nearly all developers interviewed were reticent about being a “pioneer” in pursuing a PoA, since it involves additional processes of unknown cost and 68 complexity (Ibid.). One way a PoA could help with A/R projects could be by enabling developers to avoid having to specify fixed boundaries of the project (as they do under normal procedures), which can limit participation in the project since the set of interested potential participants may not be known during the design stage. However, it could be simpler if the CDM were to allow flexible boundaries in A/R projects, in which additional planting areas could be added to the project without new proposal requirements as long as the same project methodology were used and participants were involved (Ibid.). Such a flexible approach is allowed by the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (GGAS) in Australia. Another change in the CDM that could increase its attractiveness to A/R project developers in SSA would be to replace the non-fungible tCERs and lCERs for these activities by permanent CERs, as issued for other CDM projects (Ibid.). Risks of non-permanence of emission reductions could be addressed by requiring a risk buffer similar to that used under the VCS. This would address the problem caused by expiring credits while still addressing the risks of non-permanence. Supporting the development and demonstration of simplified methodologies for establishing baselines and verifying emissions reductions would likely be helpful, especially for areas where there has been little CDM activity to date (like A/R projects) or new areas (like REDD and AFOLU activities) and for smaller projects. Acceptance of standardized simple methodologies, supported by sufficient research and tailored to local contexts, to estimate emissions reductions based on readily observed indicators could greatly reduce the complexity, costs and uncertainties associated with CDM projects. The CDM could draw lessons from the experience of the Chicago Climate Exchange and other compliance and voluntary markets that have developed simple standardized contracts and norms for emissions reductions from various AFOLU activities. Costs and delays associated with verifying compliance could also be reduced by following examples from other schemes. For example, the GGAS uses an approach that allows a proportion of certified units to be credited on the basis of previous verification reports and satisfactory annual on-site monitoring reports, with full on-site verifications occurring at no more than 5 year intervals (Ibid.). Other changes in the CDM that could increase participation of A/R projects would be to remove or relax restrictions on the amount of CERs from such projects that can be retired by any Party; change the threshold for small-scale A/R projects to be equivalent to the threshold for 69 non-A/R projects (a lower threshold presently is used for A/R projects); and provide support for capacity building of designated national authorities (DNAs) and host party project participants (Ibid.). With regard to accessing adaptation funds, part of the concern of developing country stakeholders may be the large amount of effort that was required to prepare NAPAs, without any assurance of what funds would be available or clear procedures on how to access those funds. The preparation of NAPAs in most cases followed the preparation of other strategies and action plans, such as the NAPs required under the UNCCD, the BSAPs required under the CBD, etc. Stakeholders may be concerned about the numerous planning exercises that often take place without sufficient commitment of funds to implement the plans. Thus, the more important issue may be assuring sufficient funds are available to support adaptation, rather than the procedures to access them. Nevertheless, simplifications in such procedures may also be possible and helpful, such as clarifying what activities are eligible for funds, what criteria are used to allocate funds and how they are applied. 4.3.3. Explore existing opportunities to increase participation in voluntary carbon markets As noted previously, African participation in voluntary markets for AFOLU activities is very limited, due to transaction costs of obtaining third party certification, limited technical capacity of project developers, limited availability of qualified designated operational entities (DOEs) to validate projects and certified emissions reductions, and the high perceived risks of projects in Africa. Support for developing the capacity of project developers and increasing the availability of qualified DOEs in SSA will therefore be particularly important to be able to increase access to the opportunities available. As these capacities are developed and experience with implementing such activities in SSA increases, the transaction costs and perceived risks of these projects should decline, contributing to further development of new opportunities. 4.3.4. Expand knowledge generation and outreach efforts related to climate and SLM One of the important constraints to addressing climate variability and change through SLM (and other means) is lack of full awareness of the problems, and especially lack of knowledge of effective responses that are suitable in different contexts. In the absence of such awareness and knowledge (especially on the part of policy makers), responses are often insufficient, ineffective, 70 or in some cases, can make the problems worse. Top-down promotion of “one-size-fits-all” approaches to land management or climate mitigation activities in contexts where these are not suited, can result in increased land degradation and opposition by local people. An example of this problem occurred in the Ethiopian highlands during the former Marxist Derg regime, when farmers were forced to construct terraces, even though this reduced crop production in some places because of loss of land on steep slopes, increased waterlogging, pests, and other problems. Because of these problems, farmers sometimes did not adequately maintain the terraces, contributing to problems of gully formation. It is important that efforts to promote SLM for climate mitigation and adaptation be adequately informed about the potential and actual impacts of interventions in different contexts. Applied research, technology development and knowledge generation and dissemination about “what works where when and why” in land management can help ensure that these efforts are as effective and pro-poor in their impacts as possible. This research and knowledge dissemination can and should draw upon a considerable base of indigenous knowledge on these issues, as well as upon scientific research and rigorous evaluations of program interventions. 4.3.5. Improve coordination of efforts to address climate and land degradation, and integration with key government strategies and processes Substantial efforts are taking place to coordinate programs addressing climate change within the context of the UNFCCC, while programs to address land degradation in Africa are being coordinated by the UNCCD, NEPAD and TerrAfrica. However, coordination between these focal areas can still be improved, although significant steps have begun in this direction. The processes of developing and implementing strategies and plans related to these areas are largely separate. For example, it is not clear how and to what extent many of the NAPAs developed under the UNFCCC build upon or are linked to the NAPs developed under the UNCCD. Involvement of key stakeholders from the SLM community in the current UNFCCC processes is very useful in addressing this need. It would also be useful to increase the involvement of stakeholders from the climate change community in the processes to develop SLM strategies and plans, such as the development of CSIFs. Even more important is effective integration of strategies and plans related to both climate change and SLM with the overarching strategies and policy processes in African 71 countries, including national poverty reduction strategies, rural development strategies, agricultural and environmental strategies, among others. Although references are often made to particular strategy documents or policies in national level plans on climate change adaptation or combating land degradation, actual integration of these plans with government strategies, financial planning and budgetary processes is usually less clear. Thus, the level of actual commitment of governments to supporting these plans, in terms of financial and human resources, often remains ambiguous. TerrAfrica and NEPAD/CAADP are seeking to address this shortcoming through the process of developing CSIFs. Development of broad programmatic rather than project approaches to promote SLM under the CSIF’s by TerrAfrica and NEPAD/CAADP will help to facilitate integration of SLM activities with the broader strategies of governments. TerrAfrica is also supporting analytical work to estimate public expenditures on SLM activities in several countries, information which will support the process of CSIF development. 4.3.6. Expand investments in technical, organizational and human capacity relevant to climate and SLM issues As noted in many of the NAPs, NAPAs, and other documents, inadequate scientific, technical, organizational and human capacity is a major constraint to implementation of strategies and plans to mitigate and adapt to climate change and combat land degradation. A high level of scientific and technical capacity is required to identify the nature and extent of climate change and vulnerability and land degradation in particular contexts; diagnose the main causes; prescribe and implement options to address these problems; and monitor, evaluate and synthesize lessons from these experiences. Achieving such capacity will require substantial investments in national agricultural research systems (NARS), investments that have been lacking in recent decades but which African governments have committed to increasing within the framework of NEPAD. Donor governments and multilateral organizations are also increasingly recognizing the need to increase their investments in these systems, as articulated by the World Bank in its 2008 World Development Report. Probably even more important than development of scientific and technical capacity is investment in development of organizational and human capacity at all levels. Government organizations that are responsible for implementing action plans related to climate and land 72 management will require increased capacity to provide advisory and other services to large numbers of people in dispersed locations. Local governments in particular need to strengthen their capacity to identify and respond to local problems and needs related to climate and land degradation (as well as in many other areas), especially in the context of decentralization policies being carried out in many countries. Governments and project developers need to strengthen their capacities to identify funding opportunities for climate mitigation and adaptation, develop proposals, link to existing sources and scale up funding. Training of private or public sector actors is needed to increase the availability of qualified Designated Operational Entities (DOEs) to validate mitigation project proposals and verify emissions reductions. Development of effective civil society organizations such as farmer and community organizations will be essential for small farmers and herders to be able to benefit from the opportunities offered by carbon markets and adaptation programs. Community and organizational leaders, farmers, herders and other resource users need investments in their human capacity to diagnose problems related to climate and land management and identify and implement the most effective responses. Private sector actors, such as agricultural input dealers and advisory service providers (where private providers are used) also need training on how their products and services can help farmers and herders to respond to problems caused by climate variability and change and land degradation. International private sector actors, such as agribusinesses and foreign investors, can be very important in contributing to capacity development in African countries, and can also have a large impact by incorporating SLM approaches into their investments strategies. Effective engagement of these actors can therefore be very helpful. 4.3.7. Engage civil society, farmers and other resource users in program and project development Top-down approaches to promoting SLM for climate change mitigation and adaptation are unlikely to be successful. As has been shown by a large body of empirical research and practical experience with community driven natural resource management and development programs, farmers, pastoralists, and other land resource users, as well as leaders of communities and civil society organizations, are more likely to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts if they are actively engaged in defining the problem, identifying and assessing options, 73 and developing programs and projects to implement their preferred options. Government agencies and development partners can promote this approach by promoting the use of best practices in community driven development by project and program developers. Provision of best practice guidelines and investments to strengthen the capacity of such agents in assessing local needs, facilitating local groups and other relevant skills can be helpful in this regard. 4.3.8. Address specific constraints to SLM for climate change mitigation and adaptation at national and local levels through CSIFs The specific priorities for policy changes and investments to support SLM activities are being identified at the national and local levels in several African countries through the TerrAfrica process of developing Country Strategic Investment Frameworks (CSIFs) for SLM. This process often identifies key policy changes, such as changes in land tenure policies or implementation of such policies that are needed, as well as specific investment priorities to promote SLM. Such priorities usually include many of the needs highlighted above, such as investments in strengthening technical, organizational and human capacity, improving knowledge generation and management, and others. By incorporating climate issues and key stakeholders concerned about these issues into the process of developing CSIFs, this process can help to integrate approaches to jointly address climate change, land degradation and other environmental concerns, and economic development and poverty. 74 5. CONCLUSIONS In this report, we have reviewed available evidence on climate variability and change and land degradation in SSA; assessed the potential for SLM approaches to help mitigate and adapt to these problems; reviewed the policies and strategies being used to promote climate mitigation and adaptation; identified key opportunities and constraints to improve mitigation and adaptation through SLM; and identified options to achieve the opportunities and overcome the constraints. Several key messages emerge from the review: Climate change and variability in SSA SSA is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. o The impacts of climate variability have increased in SSA in recent decades, and are expected to continue to do so as a result of climate change. o The impacts of climate change on future land use, agriculture and food security are predicted to be negative throughout much of Africa, as a result of rising temperatures everywhere, and declining and more variable rainfall in many locations. These impacts will exacerbate and be exacerbated by widespread land degradation in SSA. Linkages between land degradation, SLM and climate change in SSA Land degradation is widespread in SSA, especially in drylands and forest margin areas, caused mainly by conversion of forests, woodlands and rangelands to crop production; overgrazing of rangelands; and unsustainable agricultural practices on croplands. Climate variability and change can contribute to land degradation by making current land use practices unsustainable and inducing more rapid conversion of land to unsustainable uses. However, climate change also can offer new opportunities for sustainable land management, by increasing temperature and rainfall in some environments, through CO2 fertilization effects, or through the development of markets for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. 75 Land degradation increases the vulnerability of rural people in SSA to climate variability and change, while SLM can reduce it. SLM also provides major opportunities to mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Policies and strategies affecting climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM There are many policy frameworks, strategies, institutions and programs affecting opportunities and constraints to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM in SSA. Among the most potentially important are the CDM, the voluntary carbon market, climate mitigation and adaptation funds, the UNCCD, NEPAD/CAADP, TerrAfrica and regional, sub-regional and national policy processes linked to these. SLM can provide an integrative framework for the various policy conventions and available financing mechanisms. The current use of these mechanisms to support SLM projects in SSA is very limited: o Only 10 afforestation or reforestation projects in SSA are in the CDM pipeline. o No offsets are supplied to the CCX by SLM projects in SSA, and only about 0.2 MtCO2e were offset through other voluntary transactions involving land management in SSA in 2007 (less than 0.5% of global voluntary transactions). o Many carbon mitigation have been established, but most do not support AFOLU activities in SSA. o Several adaptation funds have been established, but they are small compared to the total need, and access to these funds in SSA has been very limited so far. o Implementation of National Action Programmes of the UNCCD has been limited by funding constraints and other factors. NEPAD’s CAADP and TerrAfrica are working in partnership to promote up-scaling of SLM in Africa, with increasing focus on climate change mitigation and adaption. o TerrAfrica has mobilized $150 million in funds that are expected to leverage an additional $1 billion to support this goal. o CAADP and TerrAfrica are working with African governments to develop and support CSIFs for SLM. Integrating strategies and programs to promote SLM and address climate change with each other and with national development strategies 76 and policies is a major challenge. Addressing this challenge is a major emphasis of the CSIFs. Opportunities and constraints to increase SLM investment for climate mitigation and adaptation The major current opportunities to increase funding for climate mitigation and adaptation through SLM include o increased use of the CDM to finance afforestation and reforestation (A/R) projects; o increased use of voluntary carbon markets and carbon mitigation funds to test and demonstrate methodologies for a wider range of AFOLU activities; o increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities that have been prioritized by countries’ NAPAs; o increased funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation through programs promoting SLM in Africa; and o increased integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, including SLM, into development strategies of African governments and donors. Major new opportunities to support climate change mitigation and adaptation through SLM may arise as a result of development of a cap and trade system in the United States, and inclusion of REDD and AFOLU projects in the post-Kyoto CDM framework. Total annual payments for such activities in Africa could exceed $10 billion per year if these opportunities are realized. The prospects for these opportunities are uncertain, however. The main constraints to expanded use of the CDM to support SLM in the present framework include CDM eligibility restrictions; high transactions costs of registering and certifying CDM projects; low prices for certified emissions reductions (CERs), especially for A/R projects; long time lags in achieving CERs; uncertainty about the benefits of projects and the future of the CDM; and land tenure insecurity in many African contexts. These constraints are exacerbated by the limited technical, financial and organizational capacities of key actors in SSA. Many of the same constraints apply to supporting AFOLU investments through voluntary and other compliance carbon markets, although to a lesser degree in some cases. 77 Constraints to increased use of adaptation funds to support SLM activities for climate adaptation include the limited size of these funds; lack of coordination among key government ministries; lack of technical and human capacity to implement adaptation activities; and others. Challenges to U.S. participation in the global carbon market include the political challenge of achieving ratification of a post-Kyoto treaty; concerns about the effectiveness and risks of emissions reductions purchased from developing countries; and possible opposition by U.S. lobby groups to offset payments to foreign land users. Challenges to REDD payments include the technical difficulties and costs of defining baselines and assuring additionality; concerns about leakages; potential adverse incentives caused by such payments; concerns about the fairness of paying countries with a poor record of protecting forests and not paying those that have protected their forests; possible negative impacts on poor people, especially where they have insecure land and forest tenure; and concerns about flooding the carbon market with cheap offsets. Many of the same challenges will affect payments for AFOLU activities. Many of these concerns are likely to be less problematic than for REDD payments, except the size of transaction costs relative to the value of payments per hectare. Given the low payments per hectare possible for many AFOLU activities, projects will need to focus on promoting profitable AFOLU activities by addressing other constraints to adoption, such as lack of technical, financial and organizational capacity. Options to increase use of SLM to mitigate and adapt to climate change in SSA Based on this review, we have identified eight options to help take advantage of the opportunities and overcome the constraints to increased use of SLM in SSA to mitigate and adapt to climate change. These include: 1. Advocate improvements in the post-Kyoto agreement that address these opportunities and constraints, including o Expanding eligibility in the CDM to include all activities that sequester carbon or reduce emissions of GHGs, including REDD and AFOLU activities; o Agreeing to national targets for GHG levels of developing countries, and use a full GHG national accounting approach to credit reductions relative to baselines 78 (approach could be pilot tested in a few countries and for a specific set of activities first); and o Increasing funding for adaptation measures. 2. Simplify and improve the procedures to access funds under the CDM, adaptation funds and other relevant funds. 3. Explore existing opportunities to increase participation in voluntary carbon markets. 4. Expand knowledge generation and outreach efforts on the problems of climate variability and change, land degradation, their linkages, and options for solution. 5. Improve coordination of efforts to address climate and land degradation and integration with key government strategies and processes. 6. Expand investment in strengthening technical, organizational and human capacity relevant to climate and land management issues in SSA. 7. Engage community leaders, farmers and other resource users in program and project development. 8. Address specific policy, institutional and other constraints to SLM and climate change mitigation and adaptation at national and local level in the context of country strategic investment frameworks (CSIFs). The first and second of these options are specifically related to the UNFCCC process for negotiating the post-Kyoto agreement on climate change (although the second option to simplify CDM procedures could also be pursued immediately in the context of the Kyoto Protocol). For the first option, it will be quite important for stakeholders concerned about SLM issues in SSA, including African governments, the UNCCD, NEPAD, the TerrAfrica partnership, and civil society organizations to be actively involved in advocating a continuation of the CDM, inclusion of AFOLU and REDD projects in the CDM, and expansion of adaptation funds. The third option can be addressed outside of the UNFCCC process (although developments in voluntary markets can help inform improvements in the CDM and the post-Kyoto treaty), and involves investments in improving technical, financial and organizational capacities in SSA to reduce transaction costs and risks of mitigation projects related to SLM. The remaining five options address perennial concerns and are not closely bound to the UNFCCC process. In SSA, these can be addressed within the context of the NEPAD/CAADP 79 and TerrAfrica process to develop CSIFs for SLM in each country. To achieve effective linkages to climate change issues in these processes, it will be important to involve key stakeholders from the climate change community in these processes, where they are not yet involved. 80 Table 2-1. Regional averages of temperature increases in Africa from a set of 21 global models. Comparisons between 1980-90 and 2080-99 Season Region DJF MAM JJA SON Annual West Africa Temperature Response(oC) 3 3.5 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.2 3.4 3.1 3.2 3.1 3.1 3.4 3.7 3.4 3.2 3.6 4.1 3.7 3.6 East Africa Temperature Response(oC) South Africa Temperature Response(oC) Sahara Temperature Response(oC) Source: Christensen et al. (2007) 81 Table 2-2. Projected mean temperature increases in African countries Countries 1961-90 oC Temperature 2070-99 oC 0C increase Angola 21.52 25.53 4.01 Burkina Faso 28.16 32.38 4.22 24.6 28.16 3.56 Democratic Republic of Congo 23.95 27.93 3.98 Ethiopia 23.08 26.92 3.84 Ghana 27.15 30.87 3.72 Ivory Coast 26.19 29.79 3.60 Kenya 24.33 27.83 3.50 Madagascar 22.28 25.53 3.25 Malawi 21.79 25.72 3.93 Mozambique 23.44 27.28 3.84 Niger 27.13 31.53 4.40 Nigeria 26.73 30.46 3.73 Other Equatorial Africa 24.81 28.46 3.65 Other Horn of Africa 26.79 30.35 3.56 Other Southern Africa 20.57 24.91 4.34 Other West Africa 25.77 29.29 3.52 27.8 31.51 3.71 17.72 21.89 4.17 26.7 30.87 4.17 Tanzania 22.25 26.01 3.76 Uganda 22.36 26.04 3.68 Zimbabwe 21.03 25.39 4.36 Cameroon Senegal South Africa Sudan Source: Cline (2007) 82 Table 2-3. Regional averages of change in rainfall in Africa from a set of 21 global models. Comparisons between 1980-90 and 2080-99 Season Region DJF MAM JJA SON Annual West Africa Precipitation Response (%) 6 -3 2 1 2 13 6 4 7 7 0 0 -23 -13 -4 -18 -18 -4 6 -6 East Africa Precipitation Response (%) South Africa Precipitation Response (%) Sahara Precipitation Response (%) Source: Christensen et al. (2007) Table 2-4. Transition matrix of changes in environmental constraints to crop agriculture of land in sub-Saharan Africa (scenario HadCM3-A1F1, 2080s) Area Reference climate HadCM3-A1F1, 2080s 1,000 km2 No constraint No constraint Slight Moderate Severe 535 457 66 Slight 2,704 11 2,395 262 36 Moderate 6,061 3 67 5,379 612 15,128 0 0 80 15,048 471 2,528 5,727 15,702 Severe Total 6 6 Source: Fischer et al. (2002) 83 Table 2-5. Severe environmental constraints for rain-fed crop production (reference climate, 1961-1990 and scenario HadCM3-A1F1 in 2080s) Land with severe constraints for rain-fed cultivation of crops % Total with constraints African Region Total extent 106ha 19611990 2080 Too cold 19611991 Too dry 2080 19611992 2080 Too wet 19611993 Too steep 2080 19611994 Poor soils 2080 1961 1995 2080 Eastern 888 52.1 52.5 0 0 27.0 27.3 0 0 3.1 3.1 22 22 Middle 657 58.9 60.3 0 0 12.9 14.4 0.2 0.8 0.5 0.4 45.3 44.8 Northern 547 91.3 96.8 0 0 88.0 95.4 0 0 2.2 1.2 1 0.2 Southern 266 75.3 88.4 0 0 58.7 78.8 0 0 6.5 5.7 10.1 4 Western 632 73.3 74.8 0 0 50.6 54.3 0 0 0.1 0.1 22.7 20.5 Source: Fischer et al. (2002) Table 2-6. Percentage of land with severe versus slight or no constraints for reference climate (1961-1990) and maximum and minimum values occurring in four GCM climate projections for the 2080s based on SRES A2 emission scenario African Region Severe constraints % of total land Ref Min Slight or no constraints % of total land Max Ref Min Max Eastern 52.1 50.5 54.5 18.9 16.7 18.9 Middle 58.9 58.8 60.1 12.2 11.3 11.8 Northern 91.3 93.2 94.7 1.8 0.4 0.9 Southern 75.3 74.6 86.2 1.6 0.1 0.6 Western 73.3 72.6 75 11.3 9.7 11.1 Maximum and minimum values across constraints do generally not add up to 100 percent, since values are not necessarily from the same scenario Source: Fischer et al. (2002) 84 Table 3-1. The extent of land degradation and its effects in sub-Saharan Africa State of Land Degradation Land degradation affects roughly 20 percent of the total land area of the region. Degradation affects land productivity on 17 percent of the continent. Between 4-7 percent of the land area of SSA is already so severely degraded that it is believed to be largely non-reclaimable16. This is the highest proportion of any region in the world. Erosion rates in Africa range from 5-100 tonnes per hectare per year. Soil erosion and high rates of run off have dramatically reduced the water held in the soil. Some 86 percent of African soils are under soil moisture stress. There is a negative nutrient balance in SSA’s croplands with at least 4 million tons of nutrients removed in harvested products compared to the 1 million tons returned in the form of manure and fertilizer. Illustrative Impacts Economic Estimates vary between under 1% and 9% of GDP lost from land degradation; a related estimate is that over three percent of Africa’s agricultural GDP is lost annually - equivalent to US$ 9 billion per year - as a direct result of soil and nutrient loss. 17 The productivity loss in Africa from soil degradation since 1945 has been estimated at 25 percent for cropland and 8 to 14 percent for cropland and pasture together. 18 In the decade 1990-2000, cereal availability per capita in SSA decreased from 136 to 118 kg/year. African cereal yields have stagnated over the last 60 years 19. Africa spent US$18.7 billion on food imports in the year 2000 alone. Current food imports are expected to double by 2030. Environmental African countries represent some of the highest deforestation rates in the world Degradation of water resources due to sediment loads and pollution severely impact aquatic ecosystems. Increased surface runoff has decreased groundwater recharge – water tables have dropped, many former perennial rivers, streams and springs have been reduced to an intermittent flow, and many wells and boreholes have dried up. Up to 70 percent (in many countries) of energy comes from fuel wood and charcoal, and newer technologies using cellulosic sources of biofuel will result in even greater demands on woody resources Social In 2001, 28 million people in Africa faced food emergencies due to droughts, floods and strife, with 25 million needing emergency food and agricultural assistance. In sub-Saharan Africa, 15 percent of the population or 183 million people will still be undernourished by 2030 – by far the highest total for any region and only 11 million less than in 1997-99. Malnutrition is expected to increase by an average of 32 percent.20 Conflicts (between settled farmers, herders and forest dwellers) over access to land resources have increased as households and communities search for productive land for their crops and/or livestock. Hunger and malnutrition in SSA and degradation of water resources has increased susceptibility to life threatening diseases. Source: World Bank (2008) 16 Data from GLASOD and TERRASTAT Dregne 1991, Dreschel et al 2001. 18 Oldemann, 1998 19 World Bank, 2007b 20 CAADP, 2002 17 85 Table 3-2. Importance of Causes of Degraded Lands by Continent Cause Africa Asia Oceania Europe North America South America (million ha) Deforestation 18.60 115.5 4.20 38.90 4.30 32.20 Overgrazing 184.6 118.8 78.50 41.30 27.70 26.20 Agricultural 62.20 96.70 4.80 18.30 41.40 11.60 Over exploitation 54.00 42.30 2.00 2.00 6.10 9.10 Bio-industrial 0.00 0.90 0.00 0.00 Total degraded 319.4 370.3 87.50 99.40 79.50 79.10 Total 1286 299.6 732.4 513.0 1.00 0.00 1671.8 663.3 Source: UNEP (1997) 86 Table 3-3. Examples of sustainable land management practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation Practice Improved crop/plant/livestock management Crop rotations Agoforestry systems mixed with crops / pastures IPM Use of more resource efficient crops, livestock and trees Exclosures Improved grazing systems Pasture/rangeland enrichment Fire protection of vegetation Improved soil management Cover cropping Use of mulch and compost Manuring Crop residue incorporation Intercropping with legumes Soil improving agroforestry Vegetative strips Terracing/bunding Adaptation aspects Can reduce competition from weeds and pest impacts and possibly reduce mining of specific nutrients Increases water infiltration, slows soil drying and can provide nutrients through leaves. Reduces losses from pests Increases water use or nutrient use efficiency under current or future climate shifts Enables regeneration of vegetation cover, useful plants, and possibly spring recovery Protection and regeneration of vegetation cover, reduced soil compaction Promotion of vegetation cover and soil carbon build up Preservation of vegetation and important species Helps to reduce soil erosion, reduce weed growth, and contributes to soil carbon buildup Reduces soil erosion and helps to maintain/improve soil moisture, nutrients, and organic matter Enhances soil organic matter Adds nutrient and soil organic matter into soils Helps to improve infiltration, soil carbon, and soil nutrients (through nitrogen fixation) Helps to reduce weed growth, improve infiltration, soil carbon, and soil nutrients (through nitrogen fixation) Prevents soil erosion Prevents soil erosion Mitigation aspects Woody biomass Reduces need for nutrients and possible N2O emission reductions Some above ground carbon storage, soil carbon improvement Soil carbon improvement Prevention of GHG emissions Soil carbon improvement Soil carbon improvement Soil carbon improvement Enhances soil carbon but possible NO2 emission increases Some soil carbon impacts but also provides woody biomass; possible N2O emission increases with legumes 87 Practice Minimum tillage Windbreaks and shelterbelts Improved water management Rainwater harvesting Earth catchments Tied ridges/ zai Contour ridging / planting Formal irrigation systems Watershed management Adaptation aspects Increases soil moisture and builds soil carbon Reduces erosion due to high winds and rains Storage of water from rooftop or ground into tanks/ponds – offset prolonged droughts on high value enterprises In-situ entrapment of rainwater minimises loss of valuable rainwater and erosive runoff Localised improvement of soil structure through activity of soil organisms In-situ entrapment of rainwater minimises loss of valuable rainwater and erosive runoff Localised improvement of soil structure through activity of soil organisms Evenly distributes water on sloping areas and enables infiltration Reduces runoff Offsets effects of drought periods Also can prevent fields from accumulating excess water Effective management of rainwater, surface, and ground waters need to be implemented at scales above the household Mitigation aspects Soil carbon improvement Improved above ground carbon storage with trees Soil carbon improvement Soil carbon improvement Soil carbon improvement in selected niches Landscape level improvement in soil carbon and possibly in woody vegetation Adapted from World Bank (2008) 88 Table 3-4. Mitigation potential of alternative land management practices on soil carbon SLM Practice Agronomic practices Nutrient management Tillage and residue management Water management Set aside Agroforestry Pasture management Restoration of organic soils Restoration of degraded land Manure application Warm – dry Areas tCO2/ha/yr 0.29 0.26 0.33 All GHG tco2~eq/ha/yr 0.39 0.33 0.35 1.14 1.61 0.33 0.11 73.33 Warm – moist Areas tCO2/ha/yr 0.88 0.55 0.70 All GHG tco2~eq/ha/yr 0.98 0.62 0.72 1.14 3.93 0.35 0.11 70.18 1.14 3.04 0.70 0.81 73.33 1.14 5.36 0.72 0.81 70.18 3.45 3.45 3.45 3.45 1.54 1.54 2.79 2.79 Source: Smith and Martino (2007) 89 Table 4-1. Carbon markets, volumes, and values Scheme 2005 2006 2007 Volume Value Volume Value Volume Value (MtCO2e) (MUS$) (MtCO2e) (MUS$) (MtCO2e) (MUS$) Allowances EU Emissions Trading Scheme New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme Chicago Climate Exchange UK Emissions Trading System Subtotal Project-based transactions Clean Development Mechanism Joint Implementation Other compliance and voluntary transactions - Voluntary “over the counter” (OTC) market21 Subtotal TOTAL 324 8,204 1,104 24,436 2,061 50,097 6 59 20 225 25 224 1 3 10 38 23 72 0 1 NA NA NA NA 332 8,268 1,134 24,699 2,109 50,394 359 2,651 562 6,249 791 12,877 21 5 101 37 16 33 141 146 41 42 499 265 14 59 42 259 611 1,745 6,536 31,235 874 2,983 13,641 64,035 384 717 2,789 11,057 Sources: Capoor and Ambrosi (2007) and (2008) Note: MtCO2e = million tons of carbon dioxide or equivalent MUS$ = million U.S. dollars 21 Source: Hamilton, et al. (2008) 90 Table 4-2. Estimated economic mitigation potential by agricultural and land management practices in Africa Economic mitigation potential by 2030 at carbon prices of up to $20/t of CO22e (MtCO2e/yr) Region East Africa Central Africa North Africa South Africa West Africa Total Cropland mgmt 28 Grazing land mgmt 27 Restoration of organic soils 25 Restoration of degraded land 13 Other practices 15 Total 109 13 6 6 16 69 (26%) 12 6 5 15 65 (25%) 11 6 5 14 61 (23%) 6 3 3 7 33 (12%) 7 3 3 8 37 (14%) 49 25 22 60 265 Source: Smith, et al. (2008). 91 Table 4-3. Summary of Progress during 2007 in Phase 2 TerrAfrica countries Country Lead Government body Lead partner agency Burkina Faso CONEDD UNDP Ethiopia MoARD: National SLM Platform WB Ghana MOFEP and MLGRDE: SLM Taskforce WB Uganda MAAIF WB Status of Country SLM Investment Framework (CSIF) preparation The alignment of CPP with TerrAfrica is under discussion; a preliminary CSIF is under preparation with support from TerrAfrica partners. It is expected that a full CSIF will be prepared during the time frame of CCP Phase 1 which will then guide the development of a CPP phase 2. Under preparation Analytical work and SLM mainstreaming to support decision making As part of the preparatory activities of the five CPP sub-projects, analytical and diagnostic activities have been undertaken - Public Expenditure Review and a Gap/Institutional Analysis done in 2007 Investment development, mobilization and harmonization Within the CPP four targeted investment projects cover four key ecological areas of BF. Donor and national co-financing has been mobilized to support the implementation of these projects. Economic Sector Work on Poverty and Land Degradation (published in 2007) Draft Terms of Reference prepared and agreed with Government as an outcome of the 19-29 March 2007 FAO/WB mission. Final draft endorsed in May 2007 Under discussion with Government. Alignment and integration with the broader CAADP implementation process being pursued Country Environmental Analysis endorsed by Government in February 2007 (being published) Wide range of ongoing and planned investments to be coordinated under the country program GEF-SIP funding to be blended and harmonized with ongoing budget support and sector wide programs (i.e. NREGP, FABS, and AgDPL) Public Expenditure Review for SLM being finalized SLM Country Program supported by blended IDA/GEF funding under a Natural Resource Management SWAp. UNDP is preparing an operation targeting the Cattle Corridor. Source: TerrAfrica (2007) 92 Figure 2-1. Number of flood events per decade, by continent Figure 2-2. Total Number of People Affected by Droughts in Africa. 1964-2005 Source: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database (Gautam 2006) 93 Figure 2-3. Projected increases in rainfall from 1961-90 to 2070-99 (%) 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 Central Africa Southern Africa Senegal Nigeria Niger Ivory Coast Ghana Burkina Faso Zimbabwe South Africa Mozambique Malawi Madagascar Angola Uganda Tanzania Sudan East Africa Other West Africa -0.25 Other Southern Africa -0.2 Other Horn of Africa -0.15 Kenya -0.1 Ethiopia -0.05 Cameroon 0 Democratic Republic… 0.05 West Africa Source: Cline (2007). Figure 2-4. Changes in sub-Saharan land with no or slight environmental constraints versus increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Source: Fischer et al. (2002) 94 Figure 2-5. Probabilistic projections of production impacts in 2030 from climate change (expressed as a percentage of 1998 to 2002 average yields). Source: Lobell et al. (2008) Note: WAF stands for West Africa, SAH for Sahel, CAF for Central Africa, EAF for East Africa, and SAF for Southern Africa. 95 Figure 3-1. NDVI based estimates of land degradation in sub-saharan Africa in 2003 Source: Vlek et al (2008) 96 Figure 3-2. Effect of improved land management and climate change on crop yields Average Crop Yields Current Climate Yield Gap Yield Gap 2 Yield Gap 1 Low input Practices + Current Climate 1 Low input Practices + Climate Change Improved Practices + Climate Change Improved practices + Adapted germplasm + Climate change 2 3 4 Management and Climate Scenarios Improved practices + Improved germplasm + Current climate 5 Source: Cooper et al (2009) 97 Figure 3-3. Greenhouse gas emission sources by location 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% AFR Electricity & Heat Other Fuel Combustion Waste OECD Manufacturing & Construction Fugitive Emissions Agriculture Developing Countries Transportation Industrial Processes Land-Use Change & Forestry Source: World Bank (2007) 98 Figure 4-1. 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