The report was published on Friday (5 June) in Bonn, where the global community has gathered to negotiate the terms of a new global climate accord, due to be agreed upon in Copenhagen in December.
"Safeguarding and restoring carbon in three systems – forests, peatlands and agriculture - might over the coming decades reduce well over 50 gigatonnes of carbon emissions that would otherwise enter the atmosphere," said Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general. He argued that the tens of billions of dollars earmarked for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to secure emissions from power plants would be better spent on addressing the capacity of natural systems to retain and absorb carbon.
Ecosystem carbon management makes sense in economic terms too, the report argues, stating that without subsidising alternative land use, the costs are "modest relative to clean energy options".
According to estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body, agriculture will be second only to buildings in terms of climate-change mitigation potential. Combined with forestry and peatland restoration, it offers the greatest potential for greenhouse gas cuts, the report states.
In addition to ensuring that the carbon stocks in natural ecosystems remain intact, effective carbon management involves increasing CO2 sequestration, the report states. Policies and direct interventions to stop deforestation and protect peatlands from drainage could have a positive impact on both emissions levels and the health of ecosystems, it said.
The agriculture sector could become carbon-neutral by 2030 with appropriate techniques, the UNEP believes. Replenishing often-depleted agricultural soils with appropriate techniques, such as conservation tillage and the use of compost and manure, would bring societal as well as environmental benefits by creating new jobs, the report adds.
The environmental arm of the UN stresses, however, that policymakers must strike a balance between rural livelihoods and carbon management policies, so that the livelihoods of rural communities and indigenous peoples are not sacrificed in the race to cut emissions.
Negotiation fatigue
The UNEP said that parties in Bonn were now starting to heed calls to address ecosystems in the fight against climate change. The biggest reductions in the agricultural sector can be made in the developing world, but extensive capacity-building is needed to make the required technologies available, it pointed out.
However, observers in Bonn pointed to fatigue among some developing countries which are yet to see any commitment from rich nations to helping them financially with their climate efforts.
