Agriculture Hub | Climate & Clean Air Coalition

The Agriculture Hub is a voluntary network of governments and key stakeholders working together to reduce the sector's short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) emissions from livestock, paddy rice cultivation, open burning of agricultural residue, and food loss and waste.

The Hub supports action in the sector by:

Matching governments, inter- and non-governmental organisations, and private sector actors to tackle SLCPs from every angle
Providing access to technical expertise, advice, and training that are central to successful transformation in the sector
Facilitating the exchange of knowledge and best practices

Opportunities for action

40%

The agriculture sector is responsible for around 40% of anthropogenic methane emissions.

25%

By 2030, agriculture methane emissions need to be reduced by 20-25% to limit warming to 1.5°C.

52Mt

Global action to reduce SLCP emissions could avoid 52 million tonnes of staple crop losses annually by 2030.

24%

The agriculture and forestry sectors (including land use change) contribute around 24% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

Goals

Achieving the Paris Agreement target to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C will require major transitions in the agriculture sector. Large-scale methane and black carbon emissions reductions can be achieved in the sector and deliver benefits for biodiversity, farmers' livelihoods, and food and water security.

The CCAC aims to drive action in the agriculture sector in line with the IPCC Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5°C and the Global Methane Assessment to reduce global methane emissions by 20-25% and black carbon by 35% by 2030.

The CCAC is pursuing two main goals for the agriculture sector:

By 2030, all CCAC partners collectively ensure that agricultural SLCPs are fully considered in national climate policy and that many countries contribute to achieve the 20-25% methane reduction goal
By 2030, the top ten agricultural burning nations commit to eliminate unnecessary agricultural burning, with detailed implementation plans and buy-in at the subnational level

Join us! Membership is voluntary and open to everyone working in the sector

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Approach

We focus on locally appropriate and technically feasible measures that ensure food security and livelihoods are protected.

Existing measures to address methane emissions in the agricultural sector can achieve reductions of around 30 million tonnes per year by 2030. These include paddy rice cultivation (6-9 Mt/yr), livestock enteric fermentation (4-42 Mt/yr), and individual behavioural changes (65-80 Mt/yr).

Reducing black carbon from open burning involves raising awareness of alternative crop residue management and uses for crop residues for frequently burned staple crops (maize, rice, wheat and sugar cane).

Our work also leverages the agricultural sector’s linkages to other climate forcers like fertilizers (N₂O) to increase the sector’s contribution to midcentury net-zero climate change mitigation.

Farmers in Punjab, India learn how to use "Happy Seeders" as part of a no burn pilot project supported by the CCAC. Photo by UNEP.

Photo by Deepak Kumar on unsplash.

Caption

Foundations for action

The CCAC follows a set of tailored principles and approaches to achieving its goals. This means we:

Consider the national context, examining national production and consumption trends, and stakeholders
Involve stakeholders at all levels, including small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples, women, and local communities
Ensure current goals and policies are streamlined with other relevant plans and sustainable development policies
Support regional approaches and knowledge exchange
Collaborate with other initiatives on research and innovation, policy and practice implementation, and technical support and capacity

Leadership

The Agriculture Hub is co-led by Costa Rica, United States, Brazil, and Vietnam. Co-leadership by countries ensures government engagement and ownership of the solutions. Co-leads provide valuable insights into the policy process to help ensure implementation is practical from a national perspective.

The Agriculture Leadership Group consists of both state and non-state members that provide guidance and expertise, and connect the Hub to activities underway beyond the CCAC.