UN special report names agriculture and forestry as among the main drivers of global climate change

Only a few months back, the global report on biodiversity of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) of the United Nations identified agriculture as the main culprit for the unprecedented mass extinction we are currently witnessing. And now, the Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations again points at agriculture as the main cause for global climate change. Loss of biodiversity on the one hand and climate change on the other hand are linked, and one crucial link is intensive human land use for agriculture and forestry. Not coincidentally, both reports prominently point to the critical importance of soil. The biodiversity report already mentioned that climate change impacts our soils’ health and fertility which are crucial for agricultural productivity. And: degraded soils sustain less biodiversity and less biomass, leading to less carbon dioxide fixation. Now, the SRCCL reports that “agriculture, forestry and other types of land use account for 23% of human greenhouse gas emissions“ - while “natural land processes absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to almost a third of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry“. A vicious circle: a growing and increasingly wealthy world population produces increased greenhouse gases and extends the agriculturally used land at the cost of natural forests and swamps, further increasing greenhouse gas emission and reducing greenhouse gas consumption. The resulting climate change negatively affects agricultural production, further increasing the pressure on the dwindling land areas not yet under human use. But the reports also say: It is late, very late, but perhaps not yet too late, if we change things - if WE change things. Nota bene: both reports target agriculture, but they do not blame the farmers! Farmers have to exist and produce under the given political and societal conditions. Without farmers, no food! Politics and society have to change first; then only, farmers can change, too. Alter Sponti-Spruch: “Alles ändert sich, wenn du es veränderst!”