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Book (stand-alone)Opportunities for Agri-Food Chains to become Energy-Smart 2015
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No results found.The world’s agri-food supply chains are being challenged. For several decades, the production, processing and distribution of food have been highly dependent on fossil fuel inputs (the exception being subsistence farmers who use only manual labor and perhaps animal power to produce food for their families that is then usually cooked on inefficient biomass cook-stoves). There has also been an ever growing demand for food as the world population grows, along with the increasing demand for higher p rotein diets. As a result, the agri-food production and processing sector has become a major producer of greenhouse gases (GHGs) This report aims to assist actors along the value chains, policy makers and other stakeholders in the agri-food industry to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, reduce related greenhouse gas emissions, and become more resilient to possible future climate change impacts. Findings also show that the current dependence on fossil fuel inputs by the agri-food indust ry results in around seven to eight percent of GHG emissions. These emissions can be reduced by both improved energy efficiency along the agri-food chain and the deployment of renewable energy systems to displace fossil fuels. Various co-benefits identified - improved health, time saving, reduced drudgery, water savings, increased productivity, improved soil quality and nutrient values, biodiversity protection, food security, and better livelihoods and quality of life - should be taken into acco unt in any related policy development. As well, potential trade-offs also need to be carefully considered, in particular the use of more packaging materials to increase the shelf life of food products and ensuring that clean energy solutions do not compromise food production and food security. Moreover, what may be a suitable solution for an industrialized corporate farming system may not apply to a small family or subsistence farming systems. The challenge is to meet growing energy demands with low-carbon energy systems and to use the energy efficiently throughout the production, transport, processing, storage and distribution of food that takes into account the diversity of food production conditions. -
Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetFAO’s work on climate change: Livestock and climate change 2016
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Smallholder livestock keepers, fisherfolks and pastoralists are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Climate change impact livestock directly (for example through heat stress and increased morbidity and mortality) and indirectly(for example through quality and availability of feed and forages, and animal diseases). At the same time, the livestock sector contributes significantly to climate change. In fact, 14.5 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from livestoc k supply chains. It amounts to 7.1 gigatonnes (GT) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) per year. -
Book (stand-alone)Border and related measures in the context of adaptation and mitigation to climate change
The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO): Background paper
2018Also available in:
No results found.Although international trade is not specifically mentioned in the Paris Climate Agreement, trade can play a facilitating role in achieving the mitigation and adaptation objectives of signatories to the Agreement. Trade policies can also undermine those objectives. The focus of this paper is on examining how the facilitating role of trade can be achieved. One of the challenges created by the ‘bottom-up’ approach of self-declared national mitigation targets adopted in the Agreement is that if the economic costs of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are internalized in production and consumption, the implicit price of carbon will differ across countries. This creates the potential for trade distortions. Domestic mitigation policies in importers will almost inevitably result in some carbon leakage, i.e. offsets to reductions in domestic emissions through additional emissions generated in supplying imports. But an important distinction needs to be made between carbon reallocation and carbon misallocation resulting from changes in trade volumes. In the reallocation case, trade leads to a shift in production to lower-emitting producers thereby contributing to global mitigation. In the misallocation case, the opposite occurs. This paper analyses how various border measures, including border tax adjustments (BTAs) might be used to reduce potential carbon misallocation. The conclusion is that technical and legal constraints on the effective application of border measures for food and agricultural products to prevent carbon misallocation are extremely challenging and their use could open the door to protectionism. The use of carbon standards and labelling offers an alternative approach to reducing misallocation and promoting reallocation. It poses fewer technical difficulties and reduces the potential for legal challenges. An added advantage of labelling is that it can help to promote changes in consumption that will be needed to reduce the carbon footprint of food and agriculture. The use of the approach could be facilitated through the adoption of international standards for carbon measurement and labelling, such as those being developed through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Labelling is not a panacea and may have limited effectiveness when consumers base their consumption decisions primarily on the basis of price. For this reason, the use of domestic policy measures that increase carbon efficiency in agriculture (reduce emissions per unit of output) and limit changes in land use that contribute to emissions will also be important for achieving mitigation aims under the Paris Agreement. An increasing number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) have incorporated environmental provisions, with the most common types of provisions focusing on environmental cooperation. Recent agreements recognise the importance of mutually supportive trade and environmental policies, and national commitments to multinational environmental agreements. RTAs could play a supporting role to the Paris Climate Agreement, by fostering international cooperation on climate mitigation measures in the context of freer trade.
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