Suchergebnisse

Achieving climate neutrality primarily requires reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, in addition it requires measures to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and storing carbon in the long term to balance unavoidable residual emissions. A key measure available for countries to achieve this is to maintain and enlarge natural carbon sinks. In this respect, measures to protect and restore coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and tidal marshes are attracting growing attention as they are important natural marine carbon sinks and store a lot of carbon per unit area in their sediments. Therefore, they are often referred to as "Blue Carbon ecosystems" (BCE). Although the term "Blue Carbon" (BC) is not yet uniformly defined, it is becoming more and more prominent in international climate policy and is being discussed in the context of the (voluntary) carbon market, among other things. This study provides an overview of the use of the term BC in scientific literature and international reports in order to derive a working definition of BC and criteria for identifying BC measures (Chapter 2). In the following chapters we summarize and critically assess positive contributions and limits of the global climate mitigation potential of BCE (Chapter 3) and present a summary of the discussions and the future role of BC in international climate policy (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5, the visibility of BC emissions and removals in national GHG inventories is summarized. Based on these analyses, Chapter 6 provides conclusions and recommendations for the future use of the term BC and summarizes its potential contribution to global climate mitigation.

On the basis of a literature review, this paper outlines the main mitigation options for agricultural activities and the broader food system on the supply and the demand side. Economic, policy/legal barriers, technical barriers, socio-cultural barriers, institutional barriers as well as biophysical or environmental barriers exist that hinder the implementation of these options. Such barriers operate at farm level, at national level, at the international level as well as at consumer level. The identified barriers are clustered and recommendations are developed to overcome them, including capacity building and education, participatory approaches with farmers, setting economic incentives right, redirecting public support to focus on sustainable practices, reforming agricultural subsidies, stricter regulations, improved tenure security, coherent policy signals, addressing policies and trade structures at international level and market regulations for fairer prices to producers. However, suitable approaches for the development of food systems need to be context-specific as agricultural systems as well as barriers obstructing the implementation of mitigation approaches are highly diverse and specific to local circumstances. Including mitigation targets related to agriculture in countries' NDCs provides an opportunity to raise ambition to tackle emissions related to food systems.

This report examines how, and under which circumstances different forms of financing are suitable for results- or transfer-based mechanisms for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation as well as enhancing removals in forests (REDD+) in the context of different countries and measures. The approach of results-based payments is an important element of REDD+. Compared to unconditional finance approaches it delivers finance upon the achievement emission reductions or removals. The report provides a typology of REDD+ finance mechanisms by elaborating differences between activity-, results- and transfer-based finance. We analyse 13 specific REDD+ finance mechanisms with regard to a range of criteria (e.g. general characteristics, financial governance, monitoring and quantification provisions). The report also explores which requirements arise from Article 6 and the common practice of market-based approaches for financing REDD+. This is followed by an assessment of the potential for REDD+ financing under different assumptions. To assess how the approaches work in practice, the report discusses REDD+ financing in the context of five case countries: Indonesia, Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Democratic Republic of Congo. Against this background, we assess the suitability of REDD+ financing mechanisms for specific country situations. Finally, we draw overall conclusions and formulate recommendations for actions and constraints on the use of different forms of REDD+ financing.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) build synergies between biodiversity conservation and societal challenges such as climate change. This paper derives a working definition of NbS based on an evaluation of existing definitions, in particular the IUCN (2016) definition. It comprises the key elements of the existing definitions that we believe to be important to inform the scope of this study. It critically assesses the global mitigation potential of NbS in relevant studies for forests, croplands, grasslands, terrestrial and coastal wetlands as well as settlements. Recommendations for international climate policy are derived. The study finds that it is likely that NbS potentials provided by scientific literature overestimate the realistic potential of NbS for climate change mitigation. This is due to a lack of integrated studies, overly optimistic assumptions on land availability as well as the quality of available information. Furthermore, the influence of measures on GHG fluxes, uncertainties related to carbon fluxes and quantification methodologies as well as climate impacts are not taken into account. The majority of studies evaluating the mitigation potential of NbS focus on the technical mitigation potential. General ecological constraints such as existing threats to ecosystems, and biodiversity impacts, land use conflicts and other social, cultural and political barriers as well as the risk of non-permanence further limit mitigation potentials. The success of NbS to mitigate climate change and deliver ecological and social co-benefits will very much depend on eliminating direct and indirect pressures on ecosystems caused by current patterns of production and consumption. Nevertheless, the uncertainties related to the quantification of mitigation effects of NbS should not be used as an argument against their implementation. Neither should they be used as an excuse to delay ambitious mitigation action to reduce emissions. In the UNFCCC negotiation process, information on NbS in biennial transparency reports may serve as a basis for technical discussion to improve methodologies and indicators to assess how NbS contribute to achieving NDCs and to make further financial support available. In implementing activities under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the specific risks related to NbS must be taken into account. In the development of processes or support schemes to foster NbS, social and environmental safeguards need to be put in place. Coherence with work under other international policy frameworks such as the other Rio Conventions is required to foster synergies.