Climate change and agriculture: from challenges to solutions. Jean-François Soussana Scientific Director for Environment INRA, Paris

Transcription

1 Climate change and agriculture: from challenges to solutions Jean-François Soussana Scientific Director for Environment INRA, Paris Agricultural Task Force Brussels, September 15, 2016

2 Outline Climate change impacts Adaptation and resilience GHG mitigation Soil carbon sequestration The proposed regulation for the EU Concluding comments Agricultural Task Force Brussels, September 15, 2016

3 CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

4 Observed impacts on crop yields (% per decade)

5 Extreme climatic events since 2000: heat and drought Summer 2003 Europe (no equivalent since 1500) Summer 2010 Russia (no equivalent since 1500) Summer 2012 USA.05

6 Climate impacts on world food prices

7 Non-stationary risk in agriculture Compare past & future distributions from ensembles of global crops models (AgMIP/ISI-MIP) Extreme (-) percentiles, variance & skewness of distributions generally getting worse Global 1-in-100 year historical event occurs almost 1-in-30 years within only several decades Reproduced from Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience 7

8 Projected climate change impacts on wheat yields in Europe by 2030 (JRC, 2012) ECHAM5 HADCM3 Without adaptation With adaptation Adaptation: earlier sowing dates

9 2016 crop harvest in France A 30% decline in wheat yield and a 20% drop in cereal production A series of climate hazards: Warm winter and early crop development Cold during wheat flowering, impairing grain formation (meïosis) Excess water in May-June: anoxic conditions and local flooding Heavy fungal disease pressure Low solar radiation reducing grain filling Heat and drought in July and August, affecting summer crops (e.g. corn) How to adapt to increased climatic variability?

10 Adaptation: remote sensing, drought monitoring Rapid developments in satellite imagery, e.g.: Soil moisture (microwave, SMOS) Leaf area index and drought (Sentinel 2.0), global cover, 10 days return time, ca. 20 m resolution Infrared imaging of drought (Thirsty project, INRA, ESA & NASA) Crop and pasture monitoring to deliver near real time advice to farmers Sentinel 2.0 satellite

11 Plant breeding for heat and drought tolerance Crop programs in France: from genomics to phenotyping

12 Increasing resilience to climatic hazards Precision agriculture and modern breeding Breeding shows negative trade-offs between plant (or animal) potential productivity and resilience to climatic hazards, Water and nutrients use efficiency should be increased, but soil and water resources also are at risk, Crop monitoring, remote sensing and improved weather forecast have large potential Soil and water conservation Integrated water management at catchment scale, Conservation agriculture (no-till, cover-crops, mulch, green manure, etc.), Crop-livestock integration, perennial crops, etc. Diversification: increased resilience at farm scale Crop rotation, grass leys, permanent grasslands, specialized crops, Mixed cultivars, grass-legume mixtures, etc. Agroforestry (improved micro-climate), Diversified landscapes (reduced pest and disease pressure)

13 Hurricane impacts in Central America on monocultures vs. agroecological terraces (Nicholls et al., 2015, ASD) After Hurricane Mitch in Central America, Honduran farms under monoculture exhibited higher levels of damage in the form of mudslides (left photo) than neighboring biodiverse farms featuring agroforestry systems, contour farming, cover crops, etc. (right photo)

14 Transition in adaptation strategies: layering risk Transformative Systemic Incremental Transitions in types of adaptation Agoecology? Ecoefficiency? (Cattaneo, OECD, 2011 & Vermeulen et al., 2014, PNAS)

15 Reducing GHG emissions FROM AGRICULTURE

16 A large gap in emissions reduction by 2030 for 2 C [UNEP] By 2030, a gap of 12 Gt CO 2e with NDCs prevents reaching the targeted +2 global warming target 129 countries include the AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and land use) sector in their Nationally Determined Contributions At least 25% of total committed GHG mitigation [as estimated by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA] 16

17 Emissions intensity of AFOLU products is declining as agriculture and forestry become more efficient Note that ruminant meat has a GHG intensity much higher than other agricultural products But also note that these are direct emissions only. If we include the emissions from the human-edible feed for mono-gastric animal products, they move closer to ruminant meat IPCC WGIII AR5

18 At global scale, without soil carbon sequestration, it is not possible to reach the global target for agricultural mitigation by 2030 N 2 O and CH 4 mitigation Only 21 to 40 % of the target (Wollenberg et al., 2016, GCB)

19 A negative trade-off between agricultural GHG (CH 4, N 2 O) mitigation and food security by C target 1.5 C target (Frank et al., submitted to Nature Climate Change)

20 With soil carbon sequestration, food security is not threathened, even for a 1.5 C global warming target SOC, soil organic C sequestration; SOC+, including its benefits for yields (Frank et al., submitted to Nature Climate Change)

21 Soils contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere (Harmonized World Soil Map, UNEP, FAO, JRC 2010)

22 Why Soil Carbon? Co-benefits for adaptation, land degradation neutrality and food security 1.4 billion metric tons carbon could be stored annually in agricultural soils, equivalent to a storage rate of 0.48%/year in top soil [after IPCC, 2007, 2014]. 4 per mil (0.4%) target Cost competitive at 100 US$ per ton CO 2 Half of the agricultural soils are estimated to be degraded [FAO, 2006] The annual cost of fertilizer to replace nutrients lost to erosion is US $ 110 US $ 200 billion (ITPS, 2016) million metric tons additional grains per ton C stored in soils OM in developing countries [Lal, 2006] Reduced yield variability after soil restoration leading to increased soil organic matter [Pan et al., 2009] 22

23 What is «The 4 per 1000 initiative : Soils for food security and climate»? => A multi-stakeholder Initiative launched by France at COP21 with the support of FAO One of the 6 initiatives of the Agriculture focus of the Lima Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) 1 objective: increase soil fertility thanks to carbon sequestration in soils => 3 major outcomes: - Improve food security - Adapt agriculture to climate change - Mitigate GHG emissions 23

24 Limits and co-benefits of soil carbon sequestration Co-benefits with food security (lower mitigation costs) and climate change adaptation (water infiltration and retention), SOC will increase only over a finite period (30-50 yrs locally), up to the point when a new SOC equilibrium is approached, The additional SOC stock will need to be monitored and improved practices will need to be maintained over several decades, Soil phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) should be available (root symbioses could help), Soil and water management need to be combined, especially in dry regions.

25 Changes in EU-27 GHG emissions by sector, (ECAMPA study, JRC, 2015)

26 Changes in EU-27 agricultural GHG emissions, (million tonnes CO 2 equivalents) (ECAMPA study, JRC, 2015)

27 Without dedicated measures, agricultural GHG mitigation in Europe is not cost competitive EU-28, 2010 : Not including dedicated CH 4 and N 2 O abatement options and soil carbon (Jayet, De Cara, in press) Same conclusion with JRC 2015 (ECAMPA2) study:

28 With dedicated options, agricultural mitigation could become cost competitive and synergistic with adaptation * * * * * * * * Of total mitigation potential: Coût (en euros par tonne de CO2e évité) et potentiel d'atténuation annuel en 2030 a l échelle du territoire métropolitain (en Mt de CO2e évité) synergy des actions with adaptation instruites. (*): 59% * * *

29 EC proposal for a regulation: Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) «No debit» all land use CO 2 emissions including ag. soils and forest management need to be compensated (what about soil sealing?) Agreed, standardized accounting rules Flexibility Net credits in excess of the no-debit rule can be used to comply with ETS in other sectors (amounts limited % of total ETS to ensure environmental integrity) Compliance Natural disasters induced emissions (e.g. forest fires) may be excluded from the accounts

30 EC proposal for a regulation on emission reductions: non ETS sectors 30% reduction target for the EU by 2030 in the non ETS sectors (agriculture, transports, residential) Effort sharing, contrasted targets across member states (MS) These are net credits generated domestically by afforested land, managed grassland, managed cropland. Higher access for members with a large share of agriculture. Interannual fluctuations in emissions is subject to banking, borrowing. MS can buy and sell allocations from and to other MS. First review in 2027 (aligned with Paris agreement)

31 Concluding comments Climate smart agriculture, combining mitigation of and resilience to climate change, is urgently needed in Europe and elsewhere. Dedicated policies are required. Support from carbon markets will help transitions to happen. So far, despite limited flexibility, LULUCF and agricultural GHG mitigation are largely disconnected by EC policies, which questions the options for developing soil carbon sequestration Without the soil carbon sequestration option, it is questionable whether it will be possible to fully combine mitigation and adaptation, to develop climate smart agriculture and reach food security However, soil carbon sequestration implies: - transformative and perennial changes in cropping systems, - the development of a robust and low-cost monitoring and verification system (see the Australian Carbon Farming policy)

32 Thank you for your attention! Agricultural Task Force Brussels, September 15, 2016

33 Increased frequency of heat waves in Europe by the end of the century Number of summer heat waves (>5 days) compared to Heat waves are defined as periods of more than 5 consecutive days with daily maximum temperature exceeding the mean maximum temperature of the May to September season of the control period ( ) by at least 5 C compared to Mean of 8 and 9 regional climate models, Eurocordex ///// Significant (P<0.05) \\\\\ Robust (>2 models out of 3).. (Jacob et al., 2013; Eurocordex)

34 Increased frequency of heavy precipitation in Europe by the end of the century Heavy precipitation change (%) in heavy precipitation defined as the 95th percentile of daily precipitation (only days with precipitation > 1mm/day are considered) compared to for winter (DJF). Mean of 8 and 9 regional climate models, Eurocordex ///// Significant (P<0.05) \\\\\ Robust (>2 models out of 3) RCP4.5 RCP8.5 (Jacob et al., 2013; Eurocordex)

35 Increased frequency of droughts by the end of the century (Jacob et al., 2013; Eurocordex) Annual duration of droughts Projected changes in the 95th percentile of the length of dry spells for the period compared to (in days). Dry spells are defined as periods of at least 5 consecutive days with daily precipitation below 1mm compared to Mean of 8 and 9 regional climate models, Eurocordex ///// Significant (P<0.05) \\\\\ Robust (>2 models out of 3) RCP4.5 RCP8.5 RCP 4.5 RCP 8.5

36 > Agricultural practices to store carbon - examples Conservation agriculture Agroforestry Organic fertilizers Crop Livestock integration

37 Global agricultural soil C sequestration estimate by 2100: 36 Gt C, if improved practices are preserved over a century 2e+10 Global cropland soil C sequestration potential: vs. permanence of practices 2e+10 5e+10 Global grassland soil C sequestration potential: vs. permanence of practices 5e+10 Cumulated grassland SOC change 2e+10 1e+10 5e+9 2e+10 1e+10 5e+9 Cumulated grassland SOC change 4e+10 3e+10 2e+10 1e+10 4e+10 3e+10 2e+10 1e Years 20 $ /tco 2 50 $ /tco $ /tco yrs 100 yrs 50 yrs 40 yrs 4 per 1000 target Economic potential Years 20 $ /tco 2 50 $ /tco $ /tco yrs 100 yrs 50 yrs 40 yrs 4 per 1000 target Economic potential

38 An integrated research and implementation platform (Paustian et al., 2016, Nature)