Strong and rapid greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, far beyond those currently committed to, are required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This allows no sector to maintain business as usual practices, while application of the precautionary principle requires avoiding a reliance on negative emission technologies. Animal to plant-sourced protein shifts offer substantial potential for GHG emission reductions. Unabated, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030. Inaction in the livestock sector would require substantial GHG reductions, far beyond what are planned or realistic, from other sectors. This outlook article outlines why animal to plant-sourced protein shifts should be taken up by the Conference of the Parties (COP), and how they could feature as part of countries’ mitigation commitments under their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to be adopted from 2020 onwards. The proposed framework includes an acknowledgment of ‘peak livestock’, followed by targets for large and rapid reductions in livestock numbers based on a combined ‘worst first’ and ‘best available food’ approach. Adequate support, including climate finance, is needed to facilitate countries in implementing animal to plant-sourced protein shifts.
Key policy insights
Given the livestock sector’s significant contribution to global GHG emissions and methane dominance, animal to plant protein shifts make a necessary contribution to meeting the Paris temperature goals and reducing warming in the short term, while providing a suite of co-benefits.
Without action, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030.
Failure to implement animal to plant protein shifts increases the risk of exceeding temperate goals; requires additional GHG reductions from other sectors; and increases reliance on negative emissions technologies.
COP 24 is an opportunity to bring animal to plant protein shifts to the climate mitigation table.
Revised NDCs from 2020 should include animal to plant protein shifts, starting with a declaration of ‘peak livestock’, followed by a ‘worst first’ replacement approach, guided by ‘best available food’.
With poverty alleviation and sustainable development as key imperatives for a developing economy like India, what drives the resource-constrained state governments to prioritize actions that address climate change impacts? We examine this question and argue that without access to additional earmarked financial resources, climate action would get overshadowed by developmental priorities and effective mainstreaming might not be possible. A systematic literature review was carried out to draw insights from the current state of implementation of adaptation projects, programmes and schemes at the subnational levels, along with barriers to mainstreaming climate change adaptation. The findings from a literature review were supplemented with lessons emerging from the implementation of India’s National Adaptation Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC). The results of this study underscore the scheme’s relevance.Key policy insights
Experience with NAFCC implementation reveals that states require sustained ‘handholding’ in terms of financial, technical and capacity support until climate change issues are fully understood and embedded in the policy landscape.
Domestic sources of finance are critically important in the absence of predictable and adequate adaptation finance from international sources.
The dedicated window for climate finance fosters a spirit of competitive federalism among states and encourages enhanced climate action.
Enhanced budgetary allocation to NAFCC to strengthen the state-level adaptation response and create capacity to mainstream climate change concerns in state planning frames, is urgently needed.
This paper considers how farmers perceive and respond to climate change policy risks, and suggests that understanding these risk responses is as important as understanding responses to biophysical climate change impacts. Based on a survey of 162 farmers in California, we test three hypotheses regarding climate policy risk: (1) that perceived climate change risks will have a direct impact on farmer's responses to climate policy risks, (2) that previous climate change experiences will influence farmer's climate change perceptions and climate policy risk responses, and (3) that past experiences with environmental policies will more strongly affect a farmer's climate change beliefs, risks, and climate policy risk responses. Using a structural equation model we find support for all three hypotheses and furthermore show that farmers’ negative past policy experiences do not make them less likely to respond to climate policy risks through participation in a government incentive program. We discuss how future research and climate policies can be structured to garner greater agricultural participation. This work highlights that understanding climate policy risk responses and other social, economic and policy perspectives is a vital component of understanding climate change beliefs, risks and behaviors and should be more thoroughly considered in future work. 相似文献
Drought has been a recurring feature of the arid and semi-arid areas of Nigeria. This paper reviews the extent, severity, and consequences of drought and desertification in Nigeria with particular emphasis on the northern part of the country. The haphazard manner in which these environmental hazards have been tackled is examined and a systematic approach for the formulation of a national policy is proposed. It is recommended that a detailed formulation and implementation of the proposed policy plan is imperative to mitigate the often devastating impacts of drought and desertification in the very prone areas of Nigeria. Until such is done, some areas of Nigeria will always be vulnerable to the whims of an inevitable climatic hazard of drought and associated land degradation in the form of desertification. 相似文献
This paper examines the link between poverty and land management within the context of New Zealand's almost total removal of subsidies to agriculture since 1984. The impact of these policy changes is explored through the findings from a detailed study of sixteen farms in the North Island hill country. Stress is identified as a primary link between social damage and environmental degradation. This link reinforces the impact of other linkages expressed in reduced production, lower stocking rates, and reduced capital inputs. Deregulation is claimed to be good. This paper shows that in certain circumstances this is not so. 相似文献
The accuracy of impact estimates relating climate change to regional-scale agricultural production is constrained by the temporal and spatial resolution of climate change projections. Several techniques have been used to compensate for these limitations in order to provide reasonable estimates of the impact of climate change on crop yield. One approach assumes that variability over time can substitute for spatial variability, thereby reducing the need to estimate the impacts at a spatially dense network of stations—an assumption that has not been generally tested. This study evaluates this assumption using methods similar to those employed in the climate impact literature. The findings suggest that current practices are generally defensible if the goal is to provide a range of possible crop responses to climate change. However, the results also show that the assumption is highly sensitive to specific interactions at the soil-plant-atmosphere interface and, consequently, does not hold under certain circumstances. 相似文献