The Agriculture Sectors in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions

14 November 2016. A new report from FAO provides a detailed update on the situation of INDCs/NDC for the 189 countries which have submitted their “plans” as of July 2016. The report aims to summarize how different countries are planning to deal with the challenge of global warming, by particularly assessing the role of agriculture and land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) and the agriculture sectors (crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, as well as forestry) in meeting national mitigation contributions and adaptation objectives, respectively.

• According to the study, all 189 countries refer to mitigation commitments in their INDCs, while 134 countries include concrete information on adaptation areas and/or actions. Some INDCs (from developing countries) specify detailed measures in specific sectors, while others only point to existing plans for further reference. 
• Referring to the specific role of agriculture, FAO has found that “developing countries – especially the least-developed countries (LDCs) – put a strong emphasis on the agriculture sectors. 
• Many of these countries highlight the role of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture in economic development, particularly for employment, exports and rural development. Many countries also point to the vulnerabilities of these sectors to climate change” and to the urgency to deal with this challenge for achieving the sustainable development agenda. 
• Particularly, 148 countries include agriculture (crops, livestock) in their mitigation contributions. As for adaptation, among the 131 countries that include priority areas for these type of actions, 97 percent refer to crops and livestock, 88 percent refer to forests and 64 percent refer to fisheries and aquaculture.

The FAO analysis provided in this new report is intended to be used as basis to identify clearer objectives for international support to climate action in the agriculture sectors and contribute to the debate on climate finance priorities.