BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Recent international conferences have highlighted the importance of agriculture and ecological issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change and land degradation. The International "4 per 1000" Initiative, launched by France on 1 December 2015 during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21), consists of federating all voluntary public and private actors in the framework of the Lima-Paris Action Plan. The initiative aims to show that agriculture, particularly agricultural soils, can play a crucial role for food security and against climate change. The ambition of the initiative is to encourage actors to engage in a transition towards a productive and highly resilient agriculture based on an adapted management of land and soils, thus creating jobs and leading to sustainable development.  

THE TOOLS

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Germany (BMEL), are developing a set of multi-purpose tools on biodiversity knowledge and conservation, mitigation and adaptation to climate change: the Adaptation, Biodiversity and Carbon Mapping Tool (ABC-Map), the Nationally Determined Contribution Expert Tool (NEXT) and the Assessment, Understanding and Reporting of Restoration Actions (AURORA) platform.

ABC-Map

ABC-Map is a mapping tool that assesses the environmental impact of national policies, plans and investments in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFAT) sector via satellite images from the Google Earth Engine. This tool provides users with several indicators for baseline and project scenarios on climate change adaptation, biodiversity and climate change mitigation.

AURORA

AURORA, overseen in particular by the Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM), allows users to easily think through and select indicators to measure their restoration efforts according to their objectives. The tool aims to help stakeholders develop a monitoring system tailored to their needs by identifying indicators and measures to track progress towards their stated goals. The tool guides users through basic questions about the land restoration process.

NEXT

NEXT is a new standard for estimating the impacts of short- and long-term climate actions and ambitions on national greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenarios to determine whether they produce emission reductions to meet the climate commitment promised in the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2050. The tool provides the user with a 30-year view of the impact of climate actions on mitigation potential for specific milestones, annual and cumulative GHG emission reduction potential, disaggregation of results and the social value of carbon.

OBJECTIVES

The main objectives of this collaboration are to contribute to the development of a specific "4 per 1000" interface that would allow any user to easily access these tools and to improve the tools being developed. More specifically, the objectives are to: 

• for ABC-MAP: improve the adaptation component to include a climate risk assessment of projects, investments and policies in line with the indicators of the “4 per 1000” Initiative;
• for NEXT: produce results according to the indicators and criteria of the "4 per 1000" Initiative, e.g. soil carbon sequestration of projects, investments and policies; 
• for AURORA: adapt to the context of the "4 per 1000" Initiative by including relevant indicators; 
• collect at the level of this interface the data necessary for analysis by the three tools via a single entry;
• make the results of the analyses of the various tools accessible to the user in an aggregated way via the "4 per 1000" interface;
• test these adapted tools and the “4 per 1000” interface via demonstrations to a set of partners and actors jointly decided by FAO, AFD and the "4 per 1000” initiative; and 
• ensure the dissemination of information about the single interface and its use.

EXPECTED RESULTS

• The development of a dedicated web page on the www.4p1000.org website allowing simplified access to the adapted ABC-Map, NEXT and AURORA tools.
• The integration of hazard, exposure and vulnerability data from the climate risk toolbox and the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) into ABC-Map for the assessment of projects, investments and policies in line with the "4 per 1000" Initiative's indicators.
• The development of a "4 per 1000" interface on NEXT that supports financial actors in estimating and monitoring long term their climate commitments in the international context.
• The development of AURORA for the selection of indicators and their monitoring adapted to the "4 per 1000" Initiative in English and French with the possibility to store data for re-use. 
• Testing the tools developed and adapted in the context of the "4 per 1000" Initiative and its indicators framework. 
• Peer and user review of the tools and interface with relevant institutions and actors.
• The publication and dissemination of user guides and communication materials to target user audiences.
• Training and awareness-raising for jointly selected actors on the use of the tools developed and adapted by FAO via the "4 per 1000" Initiative.