UNFCCC Toolkit: Raising Key Issues 1.3

UNFCCC toolkit page
Factsheet: Message 3

Message 3: “A draft of the 2015 agreement, released in October, notes food security as a key objective of the agreement, and does not exclude agriculture or food systems from future discussion, finance, technology transfer or capacity building. This is positive and negotiators should ensure agriculture is not excluded as the negotiating text evolves. Specific efforts should also be made to ensure linkages to sectoral issues are made clear – for example between food security and agriculture.”

This is the third of nine factsheets containing data and facts extracted from the sources below and others, then mapped to the nine key messages or topics of this guide/toolkit. Data will be related to UNFCCC negotiations, food security and nutrition, small vs large scale farmers, as well as specific topics such as:

  • The benefits of adapting to, and mitigating the effects of, climate change;
  • Key statistics on the impact agriculture has on climate change;
  • Impacts of climate change on agriculture;
  • Adaptation-mitigation co-benefits;
  • What is the SBSTA work programme?

265 million people will face a 5% decrease in growing season in the next 40 years. Source: Big Facts

Every one US dollar invested in anticipatory measures for climate adaptation initiatives is estimated to save up to 7 US dollars in future relief costs. Source: UNFCCC

The cumulative cost of adaptation in agriculture up to 2050 is $250 billion globally. Source: Big Facts
About 70% of the mitigation potential is in low- and middle-income countries. Source: Big Facts
Crop yield improvement has saved 34% of total human carbon emission. Since the 1960s, this has meant a savings of around 13 billion tonnes each year. Every dollar invested in agricultural yields has resulted in 68 kgC fewer emissions. Source: Burney et al
Sequestering carbon in the soils of croplands, grazing lands and rangelands offers agriculture’s highest potential for climate change mitigation. These soils can store between 1.5 and 4.5 GtCO2 per year. Source: Big Facts
Improved crop management will be key to mitigating emissions in the agricultural sector. Agricultural practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon storage could reduce carbon emissions by 1,500–1,600 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year. [At a carbon price of $20/tCO2e]  Source: Big Facts
Total costs for adaptation in agriculture have been estimated at USD 7 billion per year up to 2050, USD 11.3–12.6 billion per year in the year 2030 and a cumulative USD 225 billion up to 2050. Source: Big Facts

USD 83 billion per year of additional investments in food, agriculture and rural development are required for the world to feed its growing population in 2050 – in other words, yearly investment needs to rise by more than 50%. Source: FAO

Globally, fewer new climate policies are being introduced, but many countries are currently mainstreaming earlier climate change policies across sectoral programmes. Source: Big Facts

The Green Climate Fund was designated at the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2010, as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC, in accordance with Article 11 of the Convention. Later established in December 2011 at Durban, South Africa. Source: GC Fund