Agriculture and climate change mitigation in the developing world

This paper argues that agricultural activities in the developing world which directly contribute to the current anthropogenic forcing of the global climate, and indirectly through forest clearing and degradation, constitute a quarter of the total global climate forcing from all sources. It states that many proven agricultural practices and policies can reduce this impact on the global climate without compromising food production, or reduce the climate impact per unit of agricultural production. It suggests targets for climate mitigation in developing world agriculture, taking into account the large difference between technical potentials and economically viable adoption rates and noting the equity issues relating to the mitigation activities. For the purposes of this paper, the ‘developing world’ is understood to be the countries not listed in Annex One of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.