May 2018

May 2018

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the first edition of NACSAA News, a monthly compilation of feature news; “On the Issues,” recent blogs offering policy positions on the issues important to Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA); “Other News We Are Reading,” a listing of news stories from other sources we think you will find of interest; and “Partner News and CSA Events.” We hope this newsletter will serve to keep you, your members and other constituencies fully engaged in the growing development of climate-smart agriculture policy. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated.

PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR COLLEAGUES AND OTHERS IN YOUR NETWORK TO SUBSCRIBE BY EMAILING info@SfLDialogue.net.

NACSAA in Action

NACSAA Will Be in Bonn for Joint Ag Work Program 

The North American Climate Smart Action Alliance (NACSAA) will be present at an historic conference in Bonn, Germany, this month when delegates from around the world will begin the development of the first ever Joint Agricultural Work Program.

 

Beginning Friday and extending through May 11, the 2018 UNFCCC conference will bring together top-level negotiators from more than 190 nations to begin hammering out the rules and procedures needed to implement the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. Nations in Paris pledged to cap the ongoing rise in global temperatures to under 2 degrees Celsius by mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions like carbon dioxide (CO2).

 

Ernie Shea, president of Solutions from the Land, which facilitates NACSAA, will be on hand at UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), along with other NACSAA partners, including representatives of Cornell University, Business for Social Responsibility and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Together, they will promote and build support for the series of recommendations developed by the NACSAA that encourage architects of the Joint Agricultural Work Program to address the three primary pillars of climate smart agriculture: a) sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and livelihoods; b) enhancing adaptive capacity and improving resilience to climate change; and c) delivering ecosystem services, sequestering carbon, and reducing and/or avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

 

“We are also encouraging the delegates to focus on livestock production systems, soil health, water resource management, bioenergy, crop and nutrient management, agroforestry and ‘integrated solutions,'” Shea said.

 

While in Bonn, Shea will be participating in side meetings with representatives of the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments, as well as with agriculture, conservation and business leaders who are attending. He will also be joining the Strategic Committee meeting of the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA),which takes place May 9.

 

“Both events provide valuable opportunities to advance our vision for 21st century agriculture solutions to global challenges,” he said.

 

That an agricultural approach to climate change is now being considered within the UNFCCC is a major policy breakthrough. The agricultural work program approved at the most recent climate change talks in Bonn last November (also known as Conference of the Parties, or COP 24) represented an official recognition of the need to address agricultural adaptation and mitigation challenges, an objective sought by SfL since the climate talks in Paris 2½ years ago.

 

The recognition in Bonn positions agricultural landscapes as a solution to climate challenges, particularly in its focus on ways agricultural landscapes can be managed to produce clean energy and sequester carbon.

 

For more on the unprecedented nature of agricultural landscapes being used to mitigate climate change, click HERE.

 

For an update on the GACSA role in promoting agricultural solutions, please see the following story.

Featured News
 

GACSA Forum Emphasizes Role of Agriculture in Meeting Paris Goals

 

Farmers will need to meet a mushrooming demand for food with fewer resources and in an increasingly challenging environment, while also contributing to climate challenge solutions, says a summary report of the annual forum recently held by the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA).

 

“To meet the growing demands of nine billion people by 2050, farmers will need to produce more food and reduce agricultural losses to make 50 percent more food available [while] also meeting the demand for fiber and fuels,” the summary report states.

 

The annual forum, held at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, brought together an array of around 200 participants from all over the world, to share ideas and experiences on how CSA solutions can be mainstreamed and scaled up.

 

The forum emphasized that Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) aims to make agriculture part of the solution by achieving three related outcomes: (1) increasing productivity in a sustainable manner; (2) enhancing adaptation and resilience to climate change factors and (3) reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions / sequestering greenhouse gases.

 

Alliance officials said the forum marked an important milestone in the GACSA series, noting that with the event’s third year, the conference had matured into a significant gathering of practitioners, researchers, farmers and policy makers from diverse disciplines sharing a common interest in advancing CSA solutions.

 

In remarks opening the forum, FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo recognized the role of agriculture in the implementation of the 2030 agenda on  sustainable development by highlighting the importance of the of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. She noted the signing of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture during the 23rd session of the Conference of Parties (COP23) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, calling it important for the next steps for agriculture within the UNFCCC.

 

The Koronivia pact offers an opportunity for the agricultural development community to coordinate and consolidate experience and information to date to support each of the focal areas, she said, highlighting important work done in the recent years on CSA.

 

Semedo announced the proposal of the Strategic Vision of GACSA for the years to come and challenged GACSA members to develop a concrete action plan, noting that it may also include a review of the structures and governance of GACSA She said the composition of GACSA membership is very strong in countries but should mobilize additional partners from other stakeholder groups. She offered FAO’s readiness to continue its support to GACSA.

 

René Castro, FAO assistant-director general on Climate, Biodiversity, Land and Water, highlighted for the forum the unique characteristic of agriculture to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation at the same time and within a relatively short timeframe of 10 to 15 years, compared to other sectors.

 

With dialogue in preparation of the first review cycle of the NDCs from 2020 onwards already starting, Castro identified the process as an important vehicle to strengthen countries’ commitments in the agriculture sectors in the their respective Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) offered in Paris to meet the climate change agreement’s goals. He also said the review procedure serves as an opportunity for GACSA to promote CSA as an important theme in the NDCs and tool for their implementation.

 

Despite the commitments made in Paris in 2015, Castro said the world was still on a path towards 3 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century. He called upon all stakeholders of GACSA to raise their ambition and commitments in order to limit global warming to the 1.5-degrees-Celsius-by-2100 goal set in Paris, and to help realize the potential of agriculture to significantly slow down global warming over the next 10 to 15 years.

 

 

On the Issues

Blogs outlining policy issues important to CSA 

 

NACSAA Advances Recommendations to Shape UNFCCC Ag Work Program 

 

Representatives of nations around the world attending the global climate talks in Bonn, Germany, last November officially recognized the need to address agricultural adaptation and mitigation challenges, an objective that has been sought by Solutions from the Land (SfL), since the climate talks in Paris in 2017. Now, only a few months later, the North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSAA), an initiative launched by SfL, has submitted to two subsidiary bodies established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) a series of recommendations in an initial stage of the formation of a joint agriculture work plan.

 

That an agricultural approach to climate change is now being considered is a major policy breakthrough. It positions agricultural landscapes as a solution to climate challenges, and particularly in its focus on ways agricultural landscapes can be managed to produce clean energy and sequester carbon. It’s only appropriate that these recommendations come from NACSAA, a farmer-led platform for inspiring, educating and equipping agricultural partners to innovate and implement effective local adaptation practices that sustain productivity, enhance climate resilience, and contribute to the local and global goals for sustainable development. Read more… 

 

Agroforestry Can Offer Greater Land Resiliency, Productivity, Profitability 

 

More than ever, farmers, ranchers and forestland owners in this country are being challenged to meet food, feed, fiber and fuel demands in the face of uncertain and changing climate conditions, including the volatile weather-related conditions – tornados, drought, flooding, wildfires – that come with them. Agricultural producers are constantly looking for land management practices that can help them deal with these often-unpredictable conditions. USDA and the U.S. Forest Service have recently released a report – “Agroforestry: Enhancing Resiliency in U.S. Agricultural Landscapes Under Changing Conditions” – that addresses the concept of intentionally integrating trees and shrubs into crop and livestock production systems, a move that can enhance not only the resiliency, but also the productivity and profitability of agricultural operations and lands. Read more… 

 

House Farm Bill Falls Short in Properly Underpinning 21st Century Ag 

 

As U.S. agriculture makes its way well into the 21st century, the sector finds itself at a critical juncture in its pursuit of the sustainable production of food, feed, fiber and fuel, not just for domestic consumption, but also for much of the world. The economic downturn America’s farmers have found themselves experiencing over the past four years demonstrates their vulnerability to changing conditions, including often uncertain market forces that impact commodity supply and demand. And in recent decades, changes in climate have placed additional pressures on productivity, net farm income and soil and water resources. Given these uncertainties, it is important that policy makers provide U.S. farmers, ranchers and forestland owners the tools – programs, funding mechanisms, incentives, tax breaks and research, among others – they need to meet the challenges that will likely further intensify going forward. Read more… 

 

Other News We Are Reading

 

The World Needs to Store Billions of Tons of Carbon. It Could Start in a Surprising Place (The Washington Post)

 

The corn-based ethanol industry could become a surprising leader in a technology that the world needs to fight climate change, an economic analysis published Monday suggests – a development that could scramble the intense environmental politics of the ethanol issue.

 

The technology in question is carbon capture and storage, or CCS – widely believed to be necessary to save the climate but still in a fledgling state, with relatively few large-scale installations around the world. But fitting corn-ethanol refineries with carbon-storing technologies would be a winning financial proposition that could simultaneously advance the CCS industry’s growth, the research finds. Read more… 

 

California Considers Carbon Capture, For Ethanol (Argus)

 

San Francisco, 25 April (Argus) – Ethanol producers selling fuel in California may emerge as a beneficiary of a technology often associated with the coal industry.

 

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has proposed changes to the state’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) meant to spur projects that capture CO2 and inject it into underground geologic formations.

 

Advocates say industrialized countries that burn fossil fuels must develop carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) if they want to have any hope of meeting global climate goals. But high costs and engineering challenges have limited the deployment of the technology in coal plants, as well as the oil and gas sector.

 

Stanford researchers argue in a study published on 23 April that ethanol biorefineries could take advantage of favorable economics to build CCS projects. Read more… 

 

Can Dirt Save the Earth? (New York Times Magazine)

 

Peggy Rathmann and her husband, John Wick, were involved in a major effort in California to reshape the way people think about land use and climate change. The couple own a ranch in Northern California, which they’ve dedicated in part to “carbon farming,” an agricultural technique by which the process of photosynthesis is used to divert carbon out of the atmosphere and store it underground. Moises Velasquez-Manoff writes that if just 41 percent of California’s rangeland were treated in the same manner as they’ve treated their ranch, “carbon pumped into the earth by photosynthesis might render the entire agricultural sector of the world’s sixth-largest economy carbon neutral for years to come.” Read more… 

 

Why the Climate Challenge Needs Congressional Action (Brookings Institution)

 

President Trump has aimed to undo much of the Obama administration’s policy on energy and climate. This includes announcing a withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan, rolling back vehicle fuel economy standards, attempting to rescind rules on methane emissions from oil and gas production on federal lands, ending the moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands, and opening additional offshore areas to oil and gas leasing.

 

Each of these undoings shares a common quality: The Obama administration initiated them through regulation or executive order. One could argue that any of the leading candidates in the 2016 Republican primary would have taken similar actions in the climate and energy space. What is needed now, we argue, is momentum toward bipartisan climate legislation in Congress that could outlast the back-and-forth on regulations. Read more… 

 

Pruitt Declares That Burning Wood Is Carbon Neutral (The Hill)

 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared Monday that burning wood is carbon neutral.

 

The announcement, made by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt during a meeting with Georgia forestry leaders, signals an administrative policy shift that will treat all burning of biomass as carbon-neutral “when used for energy production at stationary sources,” according to an EPA statement.

 

The administration likened the new policy decision to a clarification, saying it will help streamline regulations for forest and paper industries. Read more… 

 

The Latest State to Get Serious About Climate Change Is…New Jersey? (Vox)

 

U.S. climate hawks have not had much to celebrate lately, with the Trump administration lurching backward and states finding it more difficult than expected to move forward on their own.

 

But last week brought reason for celebration, as New Jersey, unified under Democratic rule after the 2017 gubernatorial election, passed a suite of legislation that vaulted it into the ranks of top US climate leaders, alongside California and New York. Read more… 

 

Climate Change: Michael Bloomberg Pledges $4.5m For Paris Deal (BBC News)

 

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will pay $4.5 million to cover some of the lapsed U.S. commitment to the Paris climate accord. He said he had a responsibility to help improve the environment because of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the deal.

 

Trump announced the withdrawal last June and sparked international condemnation. It will make the United States in effect the only country not to be part of the Paris accord. Read more… 

 

California Risks Severe ‘Whiplash’ From Drought to Flood: Scientists

(Reuters) 

 

California will suffer more volatile weather this century with a “whiplash” from drought to rain and mounting risks a repeat of the devastating “Great Flood” of 1862, scientists said on Monday.

 

Climate change, driven by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, would drive more extreme shifts between hot and dry summers and wet winters in the most populous U.S. state, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.

 

Global warming is making California and other regions with similar Mediterranean-style climates, from southern Europe to parts of Australia, drier and warmer in summer, said lead author Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles. Read more… 

 

Partner News and CSA Events

 

Climate and Agriculture Network for Africa

 

Online discussion: Partnerships, innovations and financing for youth in climate-smart agriculture – April 23 through May 21.

 

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network (CSAYN) are organizing an online discussion on partnerships, innovations and financing opportunities available for young people in Africa to adopt CSA. The discussion will also highlight the role of mentorship and training, and share cases of successful young farmers as role models. The discussion runs from April 23 to May 21.  

 

Emerging issues will be shared by Divine Ntiokam, founder and managing director of CSAYN, during the Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Summit on May 15 and 16 in Nairobi, Kenya. For more information, click HERE.

May 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the first edition of NACSAA News, a monthly compilation of feature news; “On the Issues,” recent blogs offering policy positions on the issues important to Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA); “Other News We Are Reading,” a listing of news stories from other sources we think you will find of interest; and “Partner News and CSA Events.” We hope this newsletter will serve to keep you, your members and other constituencies fully engaged in the growing development of climate-smart agriculture policy. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated.

PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR COLLEAGUES AND OTHERS IN YOUR NETWORK TO SUBSCRIBE BY EMAILING info@SfLDialogue.net.

NACSAA in Action

NACSAA Will Be in Bonn for Joint Ag Work Program 

The North American Climate Smart Action Alliance (NACSAA) will be present at an historic conference in Bonn, Germany, this month when delegates from around the world will begin the development of the first ever Joint Agricultural Work Program.


Beginning Friday and extending through May 11, the 2018 UNFCCC conference will bring together top-level negotiators from more than 190 nations to begin hammering out the rules and procedures needed to implement the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. Nations in Paris pledged to cap the ongoing rise in global temperatures to under 2 degrees Celsius by mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions like carbon dioxide (CO2).

Ernie Shea, president of Solutions from the Land, which facilitates NACSAA, will be on hand at UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), along with other NACSAA partners, including representatives of Cornell University, Business for Social Responsibility and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Together, they will promote and build support for the series of recommendations developed by the NACSAA that encourage architects of the Joint Agricultural Work Program to address the three primary pillars of climate smart agriculture: a) sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and livelihoods; b) enhancing adaptive capacity and improving resilience to climate change; and c) delivering ecosystem services, sequestering carbon, and reducing and/or avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are also encouraging the delegates to focus on livestock production systems, soil health, water resource management, bioenergy, crop and nutrient management, agroforestry and ‘integrated solutions,'” Shea said.

While in Bonn, Shea will be participating in side meetings with representatives of the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments, as well as with agriculture, conservation and business leaders who are attending. He will also be joining the Strategic Committee meeting of the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA),which takes place May 9.

“Both events provide valuable opportunities to advance our vision for 21st century agriculture solutions to global challenges,” he said.

That an agricultural approach to climate change is now being considered within the UNFCCC is a major policy breakthrough. The agricultural work program approved at the most recent climate change talks in Bonn last November (also known as Conference of the Parties, or COP 24) represented an official recognition of the need to address agricultural adaptation and mitigation challenges, an objective sought by SfL since the climate talks in Paris 2½ years ago.

The recognition in Bonn positions agricultural landscapes as a solution to climate challenges, particularly in its focus on ways agricultural landscapes can be managed to produce clean energy and sequester carbon.

For more on the unprecedented nature of agricultural landscapes being used to mitigate climate change, click HERE.

For an update on the GACSA role in promoting agricultural solutions, please see the following story.

Featured News

GACSA Forum Emphasizes Role of Agriculture in Meeting Paris Goals

Farmers will need to meet a mushrooming demand for food with fewer resources and in an increasingly challenging environment, while also contributing to climate challenge solutions, says a summary report of the annual forum recently held by the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA).


“To meet the growing demands of nine billion people by 2050, farmers will need to produce more food and reduce agricultural losses to make 50 percent more food available [while] also meeting the demand for fiber and fuels,” the summary report states.

The annual forum, held at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, brought together an array of around 200 participants from all over the world, to share ideas and experiences on how CSA solutions can be mainstreamed and scaled up.

The forum emphasized that Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) aims to make agriculture part of the solution by achieving three related outcomes: (1) increasing productivity in a sustainable manner; (2) enhancing adaptation and resilience to climate change factors and (3) reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions / sequestering greenhouse gases.

Alliance officials said the forum marked an important milestone in the GACSA series, noting that with the event’s third year, the conference had matured into a significant gathering of practitioners, researchers, farmers and policy makers from diverse disciplines sharing a common interest in advancing CSA solutions.

In remarks opening the forum, FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo recognized the role of agriculture in the implementation of the 2030 agenda on  sustainable development by highlighting the importance of the of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. She noted the signing of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture during the 23rd session of the Conference of Parties (COP23) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, calling it important for the next steps for agriculture within the UNFCCC.

The Koronivia pact offers an opportunity for the agricultural development community to coordinate and consolidate experience and information to date to support each of the focal areas, she said, highlighting important work done in the recent years on CSA.

Semedo announced the proposal of the Strategic Vision of GACSA for the years to come and challenged GACSA members to develop a concrete action plan, noting that it may also include a review of the structures and governance of GACSA She said the composition of GACSA membership is very strong in countries but should mobilize additional partners from other stakeholder groups. She offered FAO’s readiness to continue its support to GACSA.

René Castro, FAO assistant-director general on Climate, Biodiversity, Land and Water, highlighted for the forum the unique characteristic of agriculture to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation at the same time and within a relatively short timeframe of 10 to 15 years, compared to other sectors.

With dialogue in preparation of the first review cycle of the NDCs from 2020 onwards already starting, Castro identified the process as an important vehicle to strengthen countries’ commitments in the agriculture sectors in the their respective Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) offered in Paris to meet the climate change agreement’s goals. He also said the review procedure serves as an opportunity for GACSA to promote CSA as an important theme in the NDCs and tool for their implementation.

Despite the commitments made in Paris in 2015, Castro said the world was still on a path towards 3 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century. He called upon all stakeholders of GACSA to raise their ambition and commitments in order to limit global warming to the 1.5-degrees-Celsius-by-2100 goal set in Paris, and to help realize the potential of agriculture to significantly slow down global warming over the next 10 to 15 years.

On the Issues

Blogs outlining policy issues important to CSA

NACSAA Advances Recommendations to Shape UNFCCC Ag Work Program

Representatives of nations around the world attending the global climate talks in Bonn, Germany, last November officially recognized the need to address agricultural adaptation and mitigation challenges, an objective that has been sought by Solutions from the Land (SfL), since the climate talks in Paris in 2017. Now, only a few months later, the North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSAA), an initiative launched by SfL, has submitted to two subsidiary bodies established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) a series of recommendations in an initial stage of the formation of a joint agriculture work plan.

That an agricultural approach to climate change is now being considered is a major policy breakthrough. It positions agricultural landscapes as a solution to climate challenges, and particularly in its focus on ways agricultural landscapes can be managed to produce clean energy and sequester carbon. It’s only appropriate that these recommendations come from NACSAA, a farmer-led platform for inspiring, educating and equipping agricultural partners to innovate and implement effective local adaptation practices that sustain productivity, enhance climate resilience, and contribute to the local and global goals for sustainable development. Read more…

Agroforestry Can Offer Greater Land Resiliency, Productivity, Profitability

More than ever, farmers, ranchers and forestland owners in this country are being challenged to meet food, feed, fiber and fuel demands in the face of uncertain and changing climate conditions, including the volatile weather-related conditions – tornados, drought, flooding, wildfires – that come with them. Agricultural producers are constantly looking for land management practices that can help them deal with these often-unpredictable conditions. USDA and the U.S. Forest Service have recently released a report – “Agroforestry: Enhancing Resiliency in U.S. Agricultural Landscapes Under Changing Conditions” – that addresses the concept of intentionally integrating trees and shrubs into crop and livestock production systems, a move that can enhance not only the resiliency, but also the productivity and profitability of agricultural operations and lands. Read more…

House Farm Bill Falls Short in Properly Underpinning 21st Century Ag

As U.S. agriculture makes its way well into the 21st century, the sector finds itself at a critical juncture in its pursuit of the sustainable production of food, feed, fiber and fuel, not just for domestic consumption, but also for much of the world. The economic downturn America’s farmers have found themselves experiencing over the past four years demonstrates their vulnerability to changing conditions, including often uncertain market forces that impact commodity supply and demand. And in recent decades, changes in climate have placed additional pressures on productivity, net farm income and soil and water resources. Given these uncertainties, it is important that policy makers provide U.S. farmers, ranchers and forestland owners the tools – programs, funding mechanisms, incentives, tax breaks and research, among others – they need to meet the challenges that will likely further intensify going forward. Read more…

Other News We Are Reading

The World Needs to Store Billions of Tons of Carbon. It Could Start in a Surprising Place (The Washington Post)

The corn-based ethanol industry could become a surprising leader in a technology that the world needs to fight climate change, an economic analysis published Monday suggests – a development that could scramble the intense environmental politics of the ethanol issue.

The technology in question is carbon capture and storage, or CCS – widely believed to be necessary to save the climate but still in a fledgling state, with relatively few large-scale installations around the world. But fitting corn-ethanol refineries with carbon-storing technologies would be a winning financial proposition that could simultaneously advance the CCS industry’s growth, the research finds. Read more…

California Considers Carbon Capture, For Ethanol (Argus)

San Francisco, 25 April (Argus) – Ethanol producers selling fuel in California may emerge as a beneficiary of a technology often associated with the coal industry.

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has proposed changes to the state’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) meant to spur projects that capture CO2 and inject it into underground geologic formations.

Advocates say industrialized countries that burn fossil fuels must develop carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) if they want to have any hope of meeting global climate goals. But high costs and engineering challenges have limited the deployment of the technology in coal plants, as well as the oil and gas sector.

Stanford researchers argue in a study published on 23 April that ethanol biorefineries could take advantage of favorable economics to build CCS projects. Read more…

Can Dirt Save the Earth? (New York Times Magazine)

Peggy Rathmann and her husband, John Wick, were involved in a major effort in California to reshape the way people think about land use and climate change. The couple own a ranch in Northern California, which they’ve dedicated in part to “carbon farming,” an agricultural technique by which the process of photosynthesis is used to divert carbon out of the atmosphere and store it underground. Moises Velasquez-Manoff writes that if just 41 percent of California’s rangeland were treated in the same manner as they’ve treated their ranch, “carbon pumped into the earth by photosynthesis might render the entire agricultural sector of the world’s sixth-largest economy carbon neutral for years to come.” Read more…

Why the Climate Challenge Needs Congressional Action (Brookings Institution)

President Trump has aimed to undo much of the Obama administration’s policy on energy and climate. This includes announcing a withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan, rolling back vehicle fuel economy standards, attempting to rescind rules on methane emissions from oil and gas production on federal lands, ending the moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands, and opening additional offshore areas to oil and gas leasing.

Each of these undoings shares a common quality: The Obama administration initiated them through regulation or executive order. One could argue that any of the leading candidates in the 2016 Republican primary would have taken similar actions in the climate and energy space. What is needed now, we argue, is momentum toward bipartisan climate legislation in Congress that could outlast the back-and-forth on regulations. Read more…

Pruitt Declares That Burning Wood Is Carbon Neutral (The Hill)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared Monday that burning wood is carbon neutral.

The announcement, made by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt during a meeting with Georgia forestry leaders, signals an administrative policy shift that will treat all burning of biomass as carbon-neutral “when used for energy production at stationary sources,” according to an EPA statement.

The administration likened the new policy decision to a clarification, saying it will help streamline regulations for forest and paper industries. Read more…

The Latest State to Get Serious About Climate Change Is…New Jersey? (Vox)

U.S. climate hawks have not had much to celebrate lately, with the Trump administration lurching backward and states finding it more difficult than expected to move forward on their own.

But last week brought reason for celebration, as New Jersey, unified under Democratic rule after the 2017 gubernatorial election, passed a suite of legislation that vaulted it into the ranks of top US climate leaders, alongside California and New York. Read more…

Climate Change: Michael Bloomberg Pledges $4.5m For Paris Deal (BBC News)

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will pay $4.5 million to cover some of the lapsed U.S. commitment to the Paris climate accord. He said he had a responsibility to help improve the environment because of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the deal.

Trump announced the withdrawal last June and sparked international condemnation. It will make the United States in effect the only country not to be part of the Paris accord. Read more…

California Risks Severe ‘Whiplash’ From Drought to Flood: Scientists

(Reuters)

California will suffer more volatile weather this century with a “whiplash” from drought to rain and mounting risks a repeat of the devastating “Great Flood” of 1862, scientists said on Monday.

Climate change, driven by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, would drive more extreme shifts between hot and dry summers and wet winters in the most populous U.S. state, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Global warming is making California and other regions with similar Mediterranean-style climates, from southern Europe to parts of Australia, drier and warmer in summer, said lead author Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles. Read more…

Partner News and CSA Events

 

Climate and Agriculture Network for Africa

Online discussion: Partnerships, innovations and financing for youth in climate-smart agriculture – April 23 through May 21.


The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network (CSAYN) are organizing an online discussion on partnerships, innovations and financing opportunities available for young people in Africa to adopt CSA. The discussion will also highlight the role of mentorship and training, and share cases of successful young farmers as role models. The discussion runs from April 23 to May 21.

Emerging issues will be shared by Divine Ntiokam, founder and managing director of CSAYN, during the Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Summit on May 15 and 16 in Nairobi, Kenya. For more information, click HERE.

NACSAA Newsletters