Integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation in agriculture and forestry: opportunities and trade‐offs

Abstract

Although many activities can jointly contribute to the climate change strategies of adaptation and mitigation, climate policies have generally treated these strategies separately. In recent years, there has been a growing interest shown by practitioners in agriculture, forestry, and landscape management in the links between the two strategies. This review explores the opportunities and trade-offs when managing landscapes for both climate change mitigation and adaptation; different conceptualizations of the links between adaptation and mitigation are highlighted. Under a first conceptualization of 'joint outcomes,' several reviewed studies analyze how activities without climatic objectives deliver joint adaptation and mitigation outcomes. In a second conceptualization of 'unintended side effects,' the focus is on how activities aimed at only one climate objective-either adaptation or mitigation-can deliver outcomes for the other objective. A third conceptualization of 'joint objectives' highlights that associating both adaptation and mitigation objectives in a climate-related activity can influence its outcomes because of multiple possible interactions. The review reveals a diversity of reasons for mainstreaming adaptation and mitigation separately or jointly in landscape management. The three broad conceptualizations of the links between adaptation and mitigation suggest different implications for climate policy mainstreaming and integration.

Coupling of pollination services and coffee suitability under climate change

“…Forest conservation and the maintenance of heterogeneous agricultural landscapes, with shade trees, windbreaks, live fences, weed strips, and protection of native plants that provide food resources and nesting sites and materials, are no-regret adaptation strategies. These strategies not only support future pollination service but also conserve biodiversity (23) and provide multiple ecosystem services today (24), such as water regulation and climate change mitigation (25,26). Managing a diverse, complex shade canopy could be a double-win that allows coffee to adjust to changes in climate while improving bee habitat.…”

Trade-offs in linking adaptation and mitigation in the forests of the Congo Basin

“…Recent discussions on forests and climate change have highlighted a potential for efforts to conserve tropical forests to integrate mitigation and adaptation goals (Locatelli et al 2015;Kongsager and Corbera 2015). The carbon storage function of forests is a central pillar of the climate change mitigation agenda, as demonstrated since 2008 in the high profile of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) activities in developing countries, and related carbon management initiatives.…”

Climate-smart agriculture in practice: insights from smallholder farmers, Timor-Leste and the Philippines, Southeast Asia

“…Parallel to the REDD+, there are various thematic strands of work under the Convention (particularly the National Adaptation Programmes of Action and National Adaptation Plan) related to agriculture, including ecosystem-based adaptation, carbon sequestration, early warning systems, technology transfer mechanisms, gender and land use, land-use change and forestry (Locatelli et al 2015). These are plausible M&A solutions for the sustainable intensification of agriculture that have inconsistently integrated the rights of smallholder and marginal farmers.…”

“…Identifying how integration of adaptation and mitigation might happen in smallholder agriculture is critically important to CSA (Locatelli et al 2015). However, beyond its conceptual foundations, there is only limited a limited number of cross-national comparative studies on CSA focusing on smallholder and community-based programs.…”