Land-based implications of early climate actions without global net-negative emissions

Delaying climate mitigation action and allowing a temporary overshoot of temperature targets require large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of this century that may induce adverse side effects on land, food and ecosystems. Meanwhile, meeting climate goals without global net-negative emissions inevitably needs early and rapid emission reduction measures, which also brings challenges in the near term. Here we identify the implications for land-use and food systems of scenarios that do not depend on land-based CDR technologies. We find that early climate action has multiple benefits and trade-offs, and avoids the need for drastic (mitigation-induced) shifts in land use in the long term. Further long-term benefits are lower food prices, reduced risk of hunger and lower demand for irrigation water. Simultaneously, however, near-term mitigation pressures in the agriculture, forest and land-use sector and the required land area for energy crops increase, resulting in additional risk of food insecurity.

HASEGAWA Tomoko;  FUJIMORI Shinichiro;  FRANK Stefan;  HUMPENODER Florian;  BERTRAM Christoph;  DESPRÉS Jacques;  DROUET Laurent;  EMMERLING Johannes;  GUSTI Mykola;  HARMSEN J.H. Mathijs;  KERAMIDAS Kimon;  OCHI Yuki;  OSHIRO Ken;  ROCHEDO Pedro R R;  VAN RUIJVEN Bas;  CABARDOS Anique-Marie;  DEPPERMANN Andre;  FOSSE Florian;  HAVLIK Petr;  KREY Volker;  POPP Alexander;  SCHAEFFER Roberto;  VAN VUUREN Detlef;  RIAHI Keywan; 

2022-01-04

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

JRC123450

2398-9629 (online),   

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00772-w,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC123450,   

10.1038/s41893-021-00772-w (online),