Implementing land-based mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement in Europe requires food system transformation

Abstract

Land-based mitigation, particularly through afforestation, reforestation and avoided deforestation, is an important component of the Paris Agreement to limit average global temperature increases to between 1.5°C and 2°C. However, the specific actions that would ensure sufficient carbon sequestration in forests remain unclear, as do their trade-offs against other land-based objectives. We use a regional integrated assessment model to identify the conditions under which European forests reach the extent required by mitigation targets. We compare stylised scenarios of changes in meat demand, bioenergy crop production, irrigation efficiency, and crop yield improvement. Only 42 out of 972 model simulations achieved minimum levels of food provision and forest extent without the need to change dietary preferences, but relied on crop yield improvements within Europe of at least 30%. Maintaining food imports at today's levels to avoid the potential displacement of food production and deforestation required at least a 15% yield improvement, or a drastic reduction in meat consumption (avg. 57%). The results suggest that the large-scale afforestation/reforestation planned in European targets is virtually impossible to achieve without transformation of the food system, making it unlikely that Europe will play its required role in global efforts to limit climate change without utilising land beyond its borders.

A regional assessment of land‐based carbon mitigation potentials: Bioenergy, BECCS, reforestation, and forest management

“…Even under optimistic assumptions, only a fraction of the agricultural land will be available for mitigation purposes in reality. For instance, European reforestation targets via agricultural land abandonment will not be achievable without substantial crop yield increases and reductions in meat consumption (Lee et al, ). Some of these yield increases, however, could be driven by climate change and increasing CO 2 fertilization: crop and pasture production increase by 20.4 and 7.4%, respectively (2020–2100 average compared to the 2010–2019 period) in our baseline simulations.…”

Enhancing production and flow of freshwater ecosystem services in a managed Himalayan river system under uncertain future climate

“…Moreover, transitioning from our current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions to those consistent with the Paris Agreement (similar to RCP2.6) is expected to require extensive implementation of land-based mitigation measures, which are included in 148 of the 160 (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions, with afforestation and reforestation being central (Forsell et al 2016). Large-scale implementation of these type of mitigation measures can lead to trade-offs and conflicts with some fES such as water (Cunningham et al 2015) and food provisioning (Lee et al 2019). Under such circumstances, investment in or modification of the engineered infrastructures becomes the most effective means to replicate the regulation service delivery.…”

Human Rights and Precautionary Principle: Limits to Geoengineering, SRM, and IPCC Scenarios

“…The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC discusses geoengineering, particularly stratospheric aerosol injection and ocean fertilization, concluding that they are "largely speculative and unproven, and with the risk of unknown side effects" [61]. The Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 for the first time mentions different SRM and CDR technologies together under the term geoengineering [1] and includes bioenergy with carbon dioxide capture and storage [29,48,63,64]) and afforestation as CDR strategies in climate scenarios [1]. As pointed out in Chapter 1, in SR1.5, the term geoengineering is not used often anymore, separately considering CDR options-including the anthropogenic enhancement of natural sinks-and atmospheric as well as ground-based SRM methods [17].…”

“…Measures targeting fossil fuels (and livestock farming, etc.) will have risks and consequences themselves, at least if they include frugality and beyond technological strategies (on frugality options alongside technological strategies as well as on their consequences [2,160,[167][168][169][170][171]; especially on livestock see [63,159,172,173]). However, these risks are lower and therefore preferable to the significant risks and uncertainties associated with atmospheric SRM technologies in light of considerations of human rights and the precautionary principle [31,[174][175][176].…”