Agriculture and climate change: real problems, false solutions

Executive Summary Agriculture has entered the Copenhagen draft agreement. While few would deny that agriculture is affected by climate change and that the right practices contribute to mitigate it, expectations of the Copenhagen agreement diverge sharply, as well as notions on what are good and what are bad agricultural practices and whether any funding should come from carbon trading, or a fund or both.. Many Annex I countries want to see (virtually) all funding to come from offsets, emissions trading and projects in Non-Annex 1 Countries (largely the South). In 2008 a record 4.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emission reductions were traded on global carbon markets, and carbon trading increased by 83 per cent in just one year, but this trading has not led to a reduction in emissions. Since the Kyoto Protocol came into force in 2005, global CO2 emissions have continued to increase. Carbon trading does nothing to prevent emissions from fossil fuel burning in the North and there is strong evidence that Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits are being used to subsidise some of the most polluting industries in the South. Not surprisingly therefore, carbon trading has not delivered emissions reductions. Few have realized that there are several agricultural methodologies under the CDM, and many projects exist, particularly in relation to pig farms and oil palm plantations. These are contested for many reasons such as biodiversity destruction and soil and water pollution. These United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approved methodologies