CAN Submission on APA Agenda Item 3c

 

Climate Action Network welcomes the opportunity to submit its views on APA agenda item 3 (c) regarding guidance for accounting for emissions and removals from land use.

About one quarter of all human induced emissions come from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), mainly from land use change, fertilizer use, livestock and peatland degradation. The potential for both reducing emissions and increasing removals in the AFOLU sector is thus large, although it must be ensured that AFOLU mitigation does not compromise adaptation, food security or other social and environmental safeguards.

Reducing emissions (for example, by reducing deforestation) and enhancing removals (for example, by reforestation) are important components of many countries’ INDCs and will continue to be so in future NDCs. Land use is mentioned in 77% of all countries mitigation contributions in their INDCs, second only to the energy sector.

The Paris COP Decision (1/CP.21), paragraph 31, requests the APA to elaborate guidance on accounting for Parties’ NDCs for consideration and adoption by the first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement at its first session. The Decision refers to both emissions and removals, implicitly including AFOLU where it is included in INDCs.

It is vital that all countries account for emissions and removals from AFOLU in a comparable and transparent way, certainly those countries which intend to include emission reductions or increased removals from the sector as part of their NDCs. However, special allowance should be made for countries with the least capacity, notably, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

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