The Land Sector and Country Commitments to

Global Climate Action: A Rainforest Alliance Assessment of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)

INTRODUCTION

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) are commitments that have been submitted by the member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in advance of the 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris. They are the foundation of what will become a new, global agreement to advance interna-tional action on climate change. Each INDC details the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission commitments each country aims to achieve, along with adaptation strate-gies and other relevant information.

The Rainforest Alliance, as an organization focused on transforming land-use practices and building sustain-able livelihoods for communities reliant on forests and agriculture, is particularly interested in assessing the extent to which the INDCs account for reducing emissions caused by the land sector and improving the adaptive capacity of stakeholders involved in this sec-tor.

This paper analyzes how the land sector is being rep-resented within a select group of INDCs. It is a sum-mary of priority thematic issues related to agriculture, forestry, other land uses, and climate change. It is not an exhaustive analysis of each country’s submission or of all INDCs. The issue areas of emphasis look at how the INDC may: a) advance sustainable forestry strate-gies (including REDD+), b) promote Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices that reduce deforestation,

The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustain-able livelihoods by transforming land-use prac-tices, business practices and consumer behavior. rainforest-alliance.org

c) strive to increase yields and incomes, and d) help vul-nerable communities adapt to climate change. To that end, this paper focuses on the INDCs of forested coun-tries in the tropics and neo-tropics, including those with strong agricultural industries, along with some other developed or emerging market countries whose commitments help determine the pace and depth of change within the land sector worldwide.

These include: Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, European Union, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Russia, Uganda, United States, and Vietnam.

This analysis is supplemented with examples from the Rainforest Alliance and partners working to advance climate change action within the land sector; these examples highlight successes and lessons learned that can be applied globally.

OVERVIEW OF INDCS AND LAND SECTOR

Land sector emissions encompass those generated by deforestation, agriculture, forestry, and other land use. Within the INDCs, some countries consider the agricul-ture sector to be separate from what is called the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, while others use the term Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) to refer to both LULUCF and agriculture. The terms AFOLU and LULUCF are there-fore both used herein, meaning “the land sector”.

2

December 2015

Authors:Kassy Holmes Alex Ramage

This report was made possible due to the generous support of the SEM Charitable Trust.

The Land Sector and Country Commitments to Global Climate Action:A Rainforest Alliance Assessment of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)

AFOLU contributes up to 24 percent of GHG emissions worldwide. It is the second largest source of emissions after energy and accounts for more than the emis-sions caused by transport and buildings combined.1 In some countries, this percentage is even higher: AFOLU accounts for 75 percent of emissions in Kenya and almost 80 percent in Indonesia.2

As of December 4, 2015, 157 INDCs have been submit-ted. These collectively represent 184 countries and almost 98 percent of global emissions, as measured in 2010.3 According to the UN, “most Parties [have] included emissions and removals from LULUCF”.4 This fact, in itself, is a signal of progress; however, the extent to which each submission elaborates on how emission reductions within the land sector will be achieved, and the inclusion of specific targets and plans for monitoring and evaluation, vary significantly. One broad concern is that the ambition of countries’ mitiga-tion efforts is not always clear, because the ‘Business As Usual’ projections provided are often not explained in the INDCs.

The United States’ INDC does not specify how emis-sions within the AFOLU sector are to be reduced (nor does it include detailed actions for energy, industry and other sectors). While a degree of flexibility within mitigation strategies is understandable, a greater level of specificity would be helpful for understanding how progress will be made towards the overall US target of 26-28 percent (below 2005 levels) by 2025. The European Union’s INDC excludes LULUCF from its mitigation framework, citing unexplained “technical conditions”.5 It does pledge to establish policy that

will include LULUCF within the framework by 2020, but this leaves a concerning range of important issues unclear, including whether LULUCF emissions and removals are to be included in the base year, and if so how.

While many of the INDCs contain commitments which will make a significant contribution towards reducing global warming to the <2°C target, there are many that do not demonstrate the ambition necessary to avert a global climate crisis. For example, the 2030 targets of Russia and Japan are achievable with no substantive change in policies, and appear to use a high-baseline in 1990 to avoid meaningful reductions from more recent benchmarks. For industrialized G8 countries to propose commitments that require no additional politi-cal effort contravenes the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol. 6 7

FORESTS

Forests are vital to our planet. They are home to half of the world’s plant and animal species, provide criti-cal ecosystem services, and absorb billions of tons of carbon every year.8 Through reforestation programs and the protection of forest stocks, there is further opportunity to greatly increase the quantity of carbon absorbed and stored in trees. Given their importance, forests must be at the center of any international agreement in Paris, yet there is wide variation in the detail given to both accounting and action on forestry across the INDCs.

3

http://2014.newclimateeconomy.report/land-use/

1. Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Chapter 11 ‘AFOLU’

2. World Resources Institute, http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/forests-and-landscapes-indonesia3. http://cait.wri.org/indc/ 4. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/07.pdf p.65. European Union INDC (2015), p.26. Russia is temporarily suspended from the G8 following its invasion of Ukraine7. Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC (1998), Article 108. https://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/988.short

Indonesia is the world’s fifth-highest emitting coun-try, has the third largest tropical rainforest and ranks second to Brazil for tropical deforestation. Half of Sumatra’s forest cover was lost between 1985 and 2008. Loss of peatland and LULUCF is responsible for 79 percent of Indonesia’s total GHG emissions.9 Despite these figures, there is no explanation within the Indonesian INDC of how the country intends to make their emission reductions, or which sectors will be targeted. An earlier version of Indonesia’s INDC included plans to protect 12.7 million hectares of forest areas “for social forestry, ecosystem restoration, con-servation and sustainable use”.10 However, this level of detail is missing from the final INDC. Where deforesta-tion accounts for the greatest share of national emis-sions, as in Indonesia, the absence of specific actions or strategies to address land-sector emissions is troubling.

Alongside measures to decrease and eliminate defor-estation, some INDCs detail national plans to actually expand forest cover to reduce net emissions. Ecuador’s INDC contains a commitment to restore 500,000 addi-tional hectares annually until 2017 and increase this total by 100,000 hectares per year until 2025.11 Ghana also includes a commitment to reforestation and the afforestation of degraded lands, giving an uncondition-al commitment of 10,000 hectares of annual reforesta-tion/afforestation.12 This commitment would double with sufficient international financial support.

China’s INDC pledges an increase in forest carbon stocks of 4.5 billion cubic meters, implying an increase in forest cover of 50-100 million hectares, creating a roughly 1-gigaton carbon sink. This is a heartening demonstration of commitment from the world’s largest GHG emitter, but it will be important that land chosen for reforestation takes into account the livelihoods of local people and supports ecosystem conservation and expansion, rather than monoculture plantations.13 The INDC for China remains ambiguous on two fronts: the year when China’s CO2 emissions will peak and begin to fall, and whether the country’s targets include emissions from land use and forestry. In a country with such a large population, and with almost twice the CO2 emissions of the United States, this lack of transpar-ency is concerning.

In contrast, other INDCs include definitive commit-ments on deforestation, reforestation and the con-servation of ecosystems. Mexico’s INDC includes a commitment to “reach a rate of 0% deforestation by the year 2030” and to “reforest high, medium and low watersheds with special attention to riparian zones…taking into account native species in the area”. 14 15 This level of detail, with accompanying figures and

specific percentages, represents the transparency and ambition in planned action that is highly constructive when trying to reach an international agreement, but lacking from many of the INDCs.

Some INDCs include forest cover expansion as a national objective, but lack detail on how and when these goals will be accomplished. Kenya’s INDC states the country will “make progress towards achieving a tree cover of at least 10% of the land area of Kenya”.16

India’s INDC similarly declares the country’s long-term goal to expand forest cover to “33% of its geographical area… eventually”.17 While an open-ended commit-ment is better than none at all, it would be advanta-geous to enter the negotiations with a detailed picture of how and when each country intends to meet its objectives.

The ecosystem services forests provide - including water, soil and air quality, carbon sequestration, habi-tats for communities and species, and buffering from natural disasters – are important to human life and must be protected against climate change impacts. While there are some examples of countries which have included forests as part of their adaptation plans (as seen below), it is clear that forests are evaluated more prominently in terms of mitigation.

• Peru commits to promoting landscape approach-es through its National Adaptation Plan that

“increase forests’ resilience to climate change, and reduce vulnerability of local populations”. 18

4

9. World Resources Institute, http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/forests-and-landscapes-indonesia 10. Government of Indonesia, 2015 http://www.dephut.go.id/uploads/files/18321925e6ce3770e3ebb5090ed8d987.PDF11. Ecuador INDC (2015)12. Ghana INDC (2015) p.1313. World Resources Institute http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/07/closer-look-chinas-new-climate-plan-indc14. Mexico INDC (2015) p.315. Mexico INDC (2015) p.716. Kenya INDC (2015) p.217. India INDC (2015) p.1618. Peru INDC (2015) p.10

Leuser rain forest, IndonesiaPhoto: Danurfan Indie

• Colombia commits to increasing “2.5 million hect-ares in coverage of newly-protected areas in the National System of Protected Areas, in coordina-tion with local and regional stakeholders”. 19

• Liberia mentions planned actions related to adaptation and forestry including reforestation, strengthening the participation of local commu-nities in forest conservation activities and safe-guarding biodiversity. 20

• Costa Rica aims to advance ecosystem-based adaptation practices that include increasing forest coverage by 60 percent and exploring “synergies between adaptation practices and the reduction of emissions through avoided deforestation”. 21

• Mexico’s INDC also stresses the importance of protecting forests as part of an ecosystem-based adaptation strategy. 22

Sustainable forest management that emphasizes improved resilience is critical, not only in the trop-ics, but in North America, where pine bark beetles, whose proliferation is due to warmer temperatures linked to climate change, impacted “more than 4 mil-lion acres since the first signs of outbreak in 1996” in Northern Colorado and South Eastern Wyoming alone.23 Community engagement in silvicultural forest management can drastically reduce the spread of these pests, and demonstrates the inextricable link between climate change mitigation and adaptation in the forest sector. 24

Communities whose livelihoods depend on forests, and indigenous communities in particular, must also be included in climate change strategies and engaged in resilience and capacity-building efforts. This is par-ticularly critical given the vital role such stakeholders maintain as forest stewards. In the Amazon alone, it is estimated that over half of the carbon stored in the forest is within indigenous territories and protected natural areas and only 1.9% of the deforestation in the Amazon occurs inside land managed by indigenous communities.25 While the INDCs of some countries such as Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and Costa Rica note the importance of encouraging the participation of indigenous organizations and respecting the rights of traditional forest communities, many INDCs do not emphasize the need to include indigenous communities in advancing sustainable community forestry practices, REDD+ or forest conservation. As the GuateCarbon Project (box) demonstrates, when those who live and depend on forests manage them sustainably, significant benefits accrue not just for those communities but for forest conservation and climate change mitigation efforts worldwide.

Guatemala: Landscape Level REDD+ and the GuateCarbon Project

Based in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR), GuateCarbon is a forest carbon project that dem-onstrates the success of community-based forest concessions on government land and could pro-vide a valuable example to other countries seek-ing to address deforestation.

The project is a collaborative partner-ship, managed jointly by the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) and Guatemala’s National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP), with technical assistance pro-vided by the Rainforest Alliance and the Wildlife Conservation Society. By implementing sustain-able forest management practices as embodied by the Forest Stewardship Council® standards and conservation practices to protect forest carbon stock reserves, the concessions aim to gener-ate carbon credits that will be verified against the Verified Carbon Standard and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standard. “The additional revenue will help us improve forest management and conduct surveillance to stop ille-gal logging and control forest fires,” says Arturo Sánchez, a member of the Árbol Verde community forest concession. “We will also be able to con-duct ongoing monitoring to assess forest cover and examine the impacts of our work.” The project is expected to result in 36.9 million metric tons of CO2e in avoided emissions over the course of its 30 year lifetime.

As a result of implementing sustainable forest practices, community-managed forests in the 700,000-hectare project area have a defor-estation rate 20 times less than surrounding areas. Furthermore, this project is feeding into Guatemala’s emerging REDD+ strategy, pointing to the important role that large, landscape-level forest carbon projects can play in in shaping national REDD+ strategies.

5

19. Colombia INDC (2015) p.620. Liberia INDC (2015) 21. Costa Rica INDC (2015) p.1722. Mexico INDC (2015) p.723. http://www.fs.usda.gov/barkbeetle24. http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5187520.pdf25. http://www.edf.org/media/new-study-finds-55-carbon-amazon-indigenous-territories-and-protected-lands-much-it-risk

REDD+

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus additional measures (REDD+), such as forest conservation and sustainable forest manage-ment, is an approach supported by the United Nations to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests. REDD+ policies and measures seek to provide incentives for tropical forest countries to maintain and enhance forest resources for the environmental services they offer. REDD+ has been identified as one of the more cost-effective ways to reduce global emis-sions, as preventing deforestation achieves impacts in a very short period of time. 26

Many tropical and sub-tropical forested countries reference REDD+ within their INDCs, including Brazil, Colombia, India, and Indonesia. It is widely seen as an important tool in the mitigation of climate change, but its prominence and detail within the INDCs varies. Regarding REDD, Peru cites the need to “reinforce sup-port for this mechanism under the new agreement”.27 Guatemala’s INDC states it will utilize a REDD+ strat-egy as a key incentive for reducing emissions within the LULUCF sector, with the aim of developing a National Emissions Reduction Program.28 Ghana’s INDC focuses its land sector emission reductions almost entirely on REDD+, stating that its five named actions fall under the promotion of “sustainable utilization of forest resources through REDD+”.29 These actions include annual reforestation/afforestation of 10,000 ha of degraded lands and a 45 percent emission reduction from cocoa landscapes, coupled with efforts to increase the incomes of 20,000 cocoa farmers by “doubling the average yield per hectare”. 30

The REDD+ safeguards outlined in the Cancun Agreement (2010) underscore respect for the inter-ests and rights of indigenous communities and obser-vance of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in REDD+ programs and projects. Costa Rica’s INDC is an example that explicitly states that all climate policies and actions must have full compliance with the Cancun Safeguards and abide by the rules of FPIC.31 It will be important to the integrity and longevity of REDD+ that these rules and guidelines are followed and updated as necessary.

REDD+ exemplifies a trend inherent to the INDCs: many of the most transformative changes are con-tingent on the agreement of a financial distribution mechanism between mature industrialized economies and the world’s developing nations. This is noted in Uganda’s INDC, which states that the country’s achievement target in the forestry sector “assumes continuation of existing supported measures in the sec-tor and in particular financial flows through the imple-mentation of REDD+.”32 Brazil similarly asserts that “…

the implementation of REDD+ activities and the per-manence of results achieved require the provision, on a continuous basis, of adequate and predictable results-based payments in accordance with the relevant COP decisions.”33

There is uncertainty not only concerning the adequacy and sustainability of funding sources for REDD+, but also on how emission reductions will be compensated and toward which country’s INDC these emissions reductions will count. Reaching agreement on these issues that form the basis of a successful REDD+ mech-anism is one of the primary challenges for the Paris summit.

While there are examples of countries that include REDD+ within the INDCs, such as those above, some countries like Ecuador, Kenya, and the United States do not mention it at all. Considering how much tropical forest countries have invested over nearly ten years of preparing for REDD+, it’s disconcerting that there aren’t more INDCs explicitly calling for REDD+ as a principle mitigation action.

6

Protected forest on cocoa farm in PeruPhoto: David Dudenhoefer

26. https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/what-redd27. Peru INDC (2015) p.1228. Guatemala INDC (2015)29. Ghana INDC (2015) p 330. Ghana INDC (2015) p.1331. Costa Rica INDC (2015) p.1132. Uganda INDC (2015) p.1633. Brazil INDC (2015) p.4

AGRICULTURE

Several INDCs recognize agriculture as a key source of emissions, though the level of detail on how such emissions will be reduced is inconsistent. Some key examples of countries that explicitly refer to agricul-ture include the following.

• Kenya’s INDC states the country will promote and implement Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) in line with the country’s highly impressive National CSA Framework, which includes commitments such as rehabilitating “at least 20 percent of degraded land… by 2030”. 34 35

• Costa Rica asserts that it is “looking earnestly into emission reduction through different mea-sures… while increasing productivity and the range of environmental services provided by agri-culture and livestock”.36 To that end, the country is advancing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA) within the coffee sector, as well as developing NAMA proposals for livestock and biomass, among other initiatives.

• Vietnam’s INDC commits the country to reducing emissions associated with agriculture through CSA and improved production processes and technolo-gies that, for example, allow farmers to use waste as feed and fertilizers. 37

• Brazil’s INDC commits to strengthening the Low Carbon Emission Agriculture Program (ABC) as “the main strategy for sustainable agriculture development”, through the restoration of “an additional 15 million hectares of degraded pas-turelands by 2030” and enhancement of “5 million hectares of integrated cropland-livestock-forestry systems (ICLFS) by 2030”. 38

In most INDCs the actions to reduce GHGs associ-ated with agriculture are not detailed or prominently expressed. This is concerning given the fact that although total AFOLU emissions have decreased within the past decade, GHGs generated through crop and livestock production have increased, making agricul-ture the main GHG source in the AFOLU sector.39 As an example, New Zealand is a developed country where agriculture constitutes around half of GHG emissions. Despite the large amount of GHGs generated by the agricultural sector, New Zealand’s government has stated that it is unlikely that agricultural emissions will be specifically targeted for reductions in its INDC.40 Argentina’s agricultural emissions, largely from cattle-ranching, are actually set to increase by 35 percent over the next 15 years, and it will continue to account for a third of total emissions.41 If all countries demonstrated

7

34. Republic of Kenya, Climate Smart Agriculture Framework (2015), p. 31 http://canafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kenya-CSA-Program-June-24-.pdf35. http://canafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kenya-CSA-Program-June-24-.pdf36. Costa Rica INDC (2015) p.12 37. Vietnam INDC (2015) p.638. Brazil INDC (2015) p.339. https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/sbsta40/AR5WGIII_Tubiello_140606.pdf 40. http://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/climate-change-consultation-document.pdf41. http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/argentina.html

Ghana: A landscape approach to REDD+ in the cocoa growing region

Ghana is the world’s second largest producer of cocoa, with the majority of its harvest coming from the west of the country. Cocoa production is one of the country’s leading causes of deforesta-tion, and smallholder farmers are also experienc-ing the effects of climate change, with a height-ened dry season and unpredictable weather pat-terns. Cocoa farmers must therefore be included in efforts to reduce deforestation and improve the resilience of cocoa supply chains to a changing climate.

Rainforest Alliance is working to advance this goal through an innovative REDD+ agrofor-estry project implemented at a landscape-level across 36,000ha in the Juabeso-Bia region of Western Ghana. Through certification against the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) standards, training and capacity building, farmers are imple-menting practices that increase on-farm carbon storage, reduce GHG emissions and enhance productivity. Farmers are now gaining the skills needed to better manage risk within their farms and build resilience. They are also implementing measures to increase on-farm carbon storage through reforestation with the aim of ultimately generating REDD carbon credits.

Over 2,000 farmers are engaged in the project which is expected to contribute 140,000 tonnes of CO2e sequestration over 20 years. The proj-ect’s ultimate goal is to replicate this model in other biodiversity hotspots in the country where cocoa is grown.

8

a similar lack of ambition within their dominant emis-sion sectors, the world would be facing the prospect of global warming in excess of 3-4°C– enough to raise sea levels by several meters and bring devastating droughts to much of Earth’s arable land. 42 43

Agriculture is often mentioned in connection with adaptation within the INDCs. As reported by the UN, the key priority areas for adaptation listed within the INDCs are water, agriculture, and health.45 In fact, adaptation strategies within agriculture seem to be some of the more detailed of the INDCs and include implementing sustainable agriculture programs, inte-grating pest management, incorporating crops that are more resilient to heat, drought and diseases, expanding use of agricultural calendars, executing sustainable livestock management, and reducing erosion. 46

• Ecuador’s INDC speaks to the need for advancing CSA, through promoting agroforesty and silvo-pastoral practices, the use of technology and data, and capacity-building and knowledge-sharing to improve the resilience of farmers and agricultural systems.47

• Peru also commits to “reducing the negative impact of climate change on agrarian activity (agri-culture, livestock, and forestry).” 48

• Costa Rica emphasizes the importance of increas-ing the resilience of agricultural production, par-ticularly through community-based adaptation approaches. 49

• Colombia specifies goals and targets, something that is often lacking from the INDCs. Colombia’s INDC expresses an ambition that “10 subsec-tors of the agricultural sector such as rice, coffee, livestock and silvopastoral, [will gain] improved capabilities to adapt appropriately to climate change and variability”; and it commits to “1 mil-lion producers [receiving] agro-climatic informa-tion to facilitate decision-making in agricultural activities”. 50

• India’s National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture “focuses on new technologies and practices in cultivation, [and] genotypes of crops that have enhanced CO2 fixation potential, which are less water consuming and more climate resil-ient. India has developed 580 district-level contin-gency plans based on early warning systems and other weather forecasting systems.” 51

Gender and Climate Change Adaptation

Across the globe, women are engaged in agricul-ture, forestry and other livelihood activities that are equally affected by climate change, yet their unequal access to education and resources (natu-ral and economic) can render them more vulner-able to climate impacts than men.

Women make up 50 percent or more of the agri-cultural workforce in some countries, and have knowledge and skills that can benefit climate adaptation and mitigation. If given access to the same production resources as men, it is projected that women could increase their farm yields by 20 to 30 percent. This would boost overall agricul-tural output by up to four percent and reduce the global poverty rate by up to 17 percent. 44

We encourage the adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) and provide women with training on how to meet the requirements of Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and Rainforest Alliance certification. This aims to bring environmental sustainability while creat-ing a safe and equitable working environment for women, by protecting their rights and strictly prohibiting discrimination and forced labor. Furthermore, it states that men and women must have equal training opportunities and receive equivalent compensation when completing the same type of work.

• Liberia’s INDC includes the promotion of drought-resistant/flood- tolerant crop species”, the devel-opment of climate resilient crop/agroforestry diversification, the creation of a climate adapta-tion knowledge and experience-sharing platform, and the establishment of a “gene bank of climate-resilient varieties of indigenous food crops”.52

42. http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/newzealand.html43. World Bank (2015), Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided p.50-65 http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/

WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2015/07/17/090224b0828c33e7/1_0/Rendered/PDF/Turn0down0the00orld0must0be0avoided.pdf44. http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/sites/default/files/publication/pdf/women_climate_EN_150616-final.pdf45. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/07.pdf 46. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/07.pdf 47. Ecuador INDC (2015) p.11 48. Peru INDC (2015) p.1049. Costa Rica INDC (2015) p.1650. Colombia INDC (2015) p.6 51. India INDC (2015) p.20-2152. Liberia INDC (2015) p.14

Agriculture offers a mixed picture across the INDCs. There are some highly encouraging adaptation strate-gies that demonstrate that many countries across the world are taking on the crucial challenge of building resilience in food production. However, agriculture alone represents 13 percent of global emissions, and the INDCs do not contain enough detail on the mitiga-tion strategies that will be implemented to address this challenge.53 Except for some notable exceptions, including Costa Rica, Kenya, and Ecuador, CSA does not feature in the INDCs to the extent that it will be required throughout the world in the coming years. In addition to the need to reduce GHGs within the sec-tor, agriculture will be faced with rising production demands with a need for overall food production to increase by an estimated 70 percent by 2050.54 This will require increased production efficiencies along with large yield increases, all of which demand a global shift towards CSA.

ACCOUNTING & METHODOLOGY

Although is it expected that countries follow the IPCC Good Practice Guidance related to monitoring and accounting for emissions, there is no mandated frame-work, so countries vary in the methods and approaches used with regards to the land sector. As noted by the UN, “Many of the INDCs do not provide comprehen-sive information on the assumptions and methods applied in relation to LULUCF, which presents a major challenge for the quantitative evaluation of the aggre-gate effect of the INDCs.” 55

Assessing climate change adaptation (i.e. climate resil-ience or reduced vulnerability) presents another moni-toring and accounting challenge within the INDCs: how

9

do we determine whether a community has ‘adapted’ or is ‘resilient’? Unlike ‘hectares of land certified’ or ‘tons of carbon sequestered’, there are no stand-alone indi-cators or metrics for adaptation. Countries will need to design creative ways to address this challenge and to better understand existing methods and approaches in order to ensure that adaptation interventions are indeed improving the adaptive capacity of those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

More broadly, without sufficient oversight and trans-parency, there is a risk that countries’ emissions and deforestation data may be miscounted or misrepre-sented. The need for the application of standard proce-dures of measurement is demonstrated by the disparity between AFOLU emissions data being reported by the Indonesian government and the level of deforesta-tion that the wider scientific community estimates in Indonesia over the same period.

53. http://2014.newclimateeconomy.report/land-use/54. Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (2009) http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Issues_papers/HLEF2050_Global_Agriculture.pdf55. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/07.pdf 56. http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/indonesia.html

Measuring tree to determine carbon sequestration in Ghana

10

While the Indonesian government claims that national AFOLU emissions have declined since 2003, the scien-tific community suggests that present trends indicate an annual 20 percent increase in deforestation, and that should this continue, emissions from forestry and other land use could be doubled over the next 15 years. We highlight cases such as these to emphasize the need for globally-united AFOLU policies to tackle land sector emissions. Indonesian deforestation is driven largely by international demand for palm oil and timber, and therefore a global binding agreement that embeds CSA and offers the opportunity to monetize standing forests, if coupled with sufficient political and scientific ambition, could help forested countries like Indonesia become leaders in the fight against global warming.

FINANCING

As noted previously, many of the actions put forward within the INDCs of developing countries are condi-tional on substantial international funding. The ques-tion remains as to where exactly this funding will come from and how it will be sustained in the long-term to sufficiently meet the requirements of the mitigation and adaptation measures of developing countries.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is an organization established in 2010 by the UNFCCC for the distribu-tion of funding for mitigation and adaptation projects. The UNFCCC has agreed that $100 billion per year will be required for climate change mitigation and adapta-tion projects in developing countries by 2020. The GCF will distribute the large majority of this public and private financing. There is recognition of the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities: that industrialized countries bear the greater responsibil-ity for climate change, and therefore for supplying the GCF (although there is some disagreement on how developing economies’ contributions should increase post-2020). However, with just over $10 bil-lion pledged to the GCF in the five years since it was established, there’s little indication that this enormous increase in funding will be forthcoming. It is a concern that an internationally established organization, central to climate change mitigation and adaptation, is making such slow progress in achieving the funding it requires five years after its inception. The GCF has done impor-tant preliminary work to establish itself as the vehicle for climate mitigation and adaptation project-funding, but it requires consistent political momentum and commitment in order to achieve the ambitions of its constitution.

CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

This paper has looked into the INDCs of nations with the most influence over current and future emissions in the AFOLU sector. A global agreement is what is required, and it is evident that the land sector, respon-sible for almost a quarter of all emissions, must be considered a central component of it. The INDCs vary in both detail and ambition, however there are encour-aging signs from a large number of countries that this traditionally underrepresented portion of global emis-sions is gaining new traction in both mitigation and

adaptation. Further, it is becoming clear that these outcomes can be achieved together. Agriculture rep-resents in itself one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. The rise in population to almost 10 bil-lion by 2050, alongside the greater food demands that follow increased wealth in the developing world, will require an increase in agricultural yield of 70 percent in the next 35 years. Achieving this growth while making drastic cuts in carbon intensity will demand significant resources and an internationally united campaign to change agricultural practices.

Protecting and expanding forests is recognized by many countries, including Mexico, China, and Colombia, as a cost-efficient strategy in the mitigation of global warming. Funding mechanisms such as REDD+, which recognize the value of the carbon stored in the world’s forests, can be a means by which forested (and often developing) countries can achieve sustainable eco-nomic growth while they and the rest of the world enjoy the benefits of our forest ecosystems, includ-ing their capacity for carbon storage. Maintaining old growth forest in regions populated by indigenous com-munities protects irreplaceable cultural and biological diversity. Any mechanism that inadvertently favors intensive monoculture plantations over these ancient ecosystems must be resisted. However, with the cor-rect regulations in place, forests can be both a stable home for humans and half our planet’s species and an indispensable carbon sink.

RAINFOREST ALLIANCE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR COP21:

• Forested countries throughout the world should not overlook adaptation in their forest climate action plans.

• China should specify an ambitious timeframe and level at which its emissions will peak and focus its impressive reforestation pledge on the restoration and expansion of natural ecosystems (rather than monoculture forests or plantations).

• India and Kenya should develop an ambitious pro-gram to achieve their targets for the expansion of forests in a timely manner—and then build on their successes.

• We encourage all countries to deliver their forest mitigation and adaptation actions in partnership and collaboration with the indigenous and agricul-tural communities that live and work on these lands.

View over forest canopy in Maya Biosphere Reserve, GuatemalaPhoto: Sergio Izquierdo

11

• We recommend that Climate-Smart Agriculture practices, which are essential to both mitigation and adaptation, are implemented throughout the world. These increase the yield of land and income for farmers and reduce devastating agricultural expansion.

• We highlight the need to empower women through education, refining production practices and diversifying income streams to improve adap-tive capacity and equality.

• We applaud Ghana, Kenya, Ecuador and Brazil for making specific commitments for the restoration of degraded lands for agriculture and reforesta-tion

• New Zealand and Argentina should recognize the opportunity for reductions in agricultural carbon intensity and match the levels of ambition shown by countries such as Costa Rica and Vietnam.

• We encourage the international community to establish a consensual model by which REDD+ can provide an adequate economic incentive to forested countries and communities to prevent the logging and land-use change that is causing deforestation across the tropics and neo-tropics. We also encourage countries to implement agri-

cultural programs that maintain ecosystems and sequester carbon. This is reliant on adherence to best practice for FPIC and the Cancun Safeguards, designed to protect local communities and prevent perversions of broader objectives.

• We encourage delegates in Paris to agree an inter-national standard for accounting and representing land sector emissions. This is evidently crucial if the international community is to hold nations to any agreement that emerges from the summit.

• We urge the international community to come to an agreement on how the Green Climate Fund is to achieve and maintain the level of funding that it needs and to provide further detail on how miti-gation and adaptation projects in the developing world can gain access to these funds.

AFOLU is one of many overlapping sectors that will require a fundamental shift in global action and approach. Success will rely on unprecedented inter-national collaboration and a shared determination to achieve and build on a meaningful agreement in Paris. Forests and agriculture must be at the center of this change in approach if we are to save the diversity of the planet’s cultures and species, adequately feed a growing population, and avoid the worst effects of cli-mate change.

BoliviaCameroonGhanaGuatemalaIndonesiaKenyaMexicoUnited KingdomUSA

rainforest-alliance.org233 Broadway, 28th Floor • New York, NY, 10279-2899 • T: +1.212.677.1900