Adaptation

1
Adaptation MitigationAgriculture and Climate
Change

• Presented to Senate Standing Committee on
  Agriculture and Forestry
• April 29th, 2003.
• By Siân Mooney
• University of Wyoming

2
Climate, production, prices, economic outcomes

• Biophysical/production changes
• Yields and total production
• Suitable crop varieties and crop choices
• Production area
• Market prices
• Will change in response to changes in global
  production
• Economic Outcomes
• Combination of biophysical changes and market
  price changes

3
Possible Climate Change

• Global average temperatures will increase by
  approx 2oC by 2050
• Regional and local changes most important
• Canadian Prairies (GCGM1, Hadley, CSIRO, GFDL)
• 2-3oC increase in summer temperatures
• 2.5-4.5oC increase in winter temperatures
• Small increase or decrease in summer
  precipitation
• Increase in winter precipitation

4
Climate predictions
Source H. Hengeveld. 2000. Projections for
Canadas Climate Future. Environment Canada.
5
Biophysical/Production Changes

• Yields
• Possible yield increase in major crops as a
  result of CO2 fertilization
• This could also improve water use efficiency
• Precipitation uncertainty quantity and timing
• Land area
• Possible for agricultural production to increase
  in Northern Canada however limited by soil
  availability
• Estimate additional 1.44 million ha (north of
  55oN)
• Possible expansion of southern areas too

6
Market Prices Overall Economic Outcomes

• Prices for agricultural commodities globally
  determined
• Global production patterns
• Changes in Canadian productivity RELATIVE to the
  rest of the world are important
• Overall economic outcome is determined by
  biophysical and economic conditions
• E.g high yields and very low prices might not be
  as beneficial as low yields and high prices
• Overall outcome is dependent on relative changes

7
Adaptation?

• Adaptation response is likely to be very
  spatially variable unlikely to be a universally
  best response
• Economic outcomes will be driven by biophysical
  capability (local) and pricing changes (global)
  need to maintain an industry that is flexible
• Economic incentives aimed at encouraging
  adaptation based on current knowledge could be
  misplaced could reduce the incentives to make
  necessary changes

8
Adaptation assistance

• Producer education
• Technological/Informational
• Development of crop varieties
• Improvements in forecasting (medium-long term)
• Risk management tools

9
GHG Mitigation - opportunities

• Agricultural soils can sequester soil C
  reducing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs
• Estimates between 0.1 to 0.6 MT C/ha/yr
• Possible to sequester C in agricultural soils at
  Prices competitive with forestry
• Although possible to sequester a small quantity
  per hectare, Canada is land rich - millions of
  hectares so overall could sequester a large
  quantity

10
Relative Cost of sequestration
Source Antle, Capalbo, Mooney, Elliott and
Paustian 2001.
11
Designing a C trading scheme

• Two main trading designs, payment for practice or
  payment per credit
• Payment per credit is the most economically
  efficient however will have measurement and
  monitoring costs
• These need not be prohibitively costly

12
Benefits from C sequestration

• Improvements in soil fertility
• Increased diversification for producers
• Could reduce the rate or amount of climate change