Driving carbon drawdown through climate action at the landscape level

Washington, DC – In the last year, the mounting challenges posed by climate change have been highlighted with the release of the 2018 IPCC report, the Global Climate Action Summit in California, international student walkouts, and numerous climate-related emergencies. Amidst the need to amplify the solutions already in our reach, there are notable opportunities in the agriculture and land use sectors. Sharing stories of state and local climate action in land use that are driving carbon drawdown and resilience, Eco Agriculture Partners and FAO North America convened a high-level speaking segment, “Climate Action Is On! Driving Drawdown & Resilience through Landscape Partnerships.”

“FAO is one of the oldest United Nations agency working on sustainable agriculture and food systems, agroforestry, climate smart agriculture, agroecology and landscape approaches,” said Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America, in his introductory remarks. “Shifting production practices towards agro-ecological approaches on a landscape level represents a key strategy to tackle the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable food systems.”

FAO is working on mainstreaming landscape approaches throughout its work and is supporting efforts to restore degraded land through programs such as the Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM) and Integrated Landscape management (ILM). FAO is also leading the Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Global Impact Program, a USD 106 million Global Environment Facility (GEF) program in 11 countries in Africa and Asia, in partnership with the World Bank, IUCN, and WWF. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 provides a timely opportunity to restore the productivity of cropland, rangeland, forests, and other terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

“The critical role of land use in climate action is finally getting the attention that it has merited all along,” said Sara Scherr, CEO and President of the Eco Agriculture Partners and moderator of the expert panel discussion. "The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report found that agriculture and land use are responsible for 25 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and agricultural emissions of methane from livestock, rice, soil, and nutrient management degradation.” She emphasized that farming, forestry, and land use interventions accounted for 12 of the 20 most practical, cost-effective, and rapid interventions for addressing climate change according to Paul Hawken’s 2017 book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.

Fred Yoder, farmer and Chair of the North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSA), shared his own personal experiences from farming. Adopting practices like no–till, conservation tillage, and cover cropping not only reduced his costs, but also improved the quality of his soil and increased soil carbon sequestration, increasing its resilience to dry weather and ability to absorb water. He noted the importance of bringing farmers to the table and seeing farmers as the solution; change agents rather than culprits. Farmers respond well to incentives and should be rewarded for these improved practices and ecosystem services he stressed. The three key pillars of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA)  are sustainable intensification, adaptation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

At the state level, Ben Grumbles, Secretary of the Environment for the State of Maryland, highlighted the importance of not only focusing on what happens in Maryland, but also the activity that takes place around the nation's largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. In order to improve water quality, the State is focusing on soil health and phosphorus management through a Maryland Healthy Soils Program, a pollution reduction budget, and a nutrient credit trading system to bring more partners to the table. These programs work with the agriculture industry rather than against it as it is the state’s largest industry. Specifically on climate action, Secretary Grumbles emphasized that many states are making real progress on not only mitigation, but also adaptation, resilience, and bipartisan public support. He highlighted that Maryland is part of the U.S. Climate Alliance Challenge, which consists of 24 States committed to becoming net carbon sinks by 2020.

“One third of the whole solution to the global problem of climate change comes from stopping deforestation and increasing restoration of degraded areas,” said Shyla Raghav, Climate Change Lead at Conservation International. She highlighted four areas Conservation International considers when approaching sustainable landscape management systems, which include good governance, long-term financing, biodiversity and natural capital, and sustainable production. She highlighted that the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit underlined the important role that state and local governments play to contribute to climate action. 

Ivy Moraes, Global Policy Director at Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development (nrg4SD), shared the organization’s work to bring the voice of regional governments to the international agenda, while also building capacity and exchanging information. The RegionsAdapt project is a framework that supports regions to take concrete action, collaborate, and report efforts on climate change adaptation.

The expert panel demonstrated that climate action is urgent and that integrated approaches in land use planning can make signification contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. Introducing enabling polices to incentivize that adaptation of sustainable practices can help the transition, while also creating funds to enable better stewardship of the land. 

Resources

Watch the full session

Landscapes for life: approaches to landscape management for sustainable food and agriculture

Integrated Landscape Management

The Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM)