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RMP/5142 Analysis of Policy Instruments for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agriculture, Forestry and Land Management

A reeport prepared for the Farming for the Future Programme, Food and Farming Group Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

Year of Publication2009

ScopeThis study follows on from a project (RMP4950) carried out by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC, 2008) which constructed Marginal Abatement Cost curves (MACC) for the AFLM sector. Since there is no existing policy framework of climate change abatement in agriculture, land use, land use change, and forestry (ALULUCF), this project builds on that work and identifies policy instruments (PIs) that could lead to the abatement of GHG emissions in the sector in England. At the present time, there is limited data available on costs and the levels of abatement available through different mitigation methods (MMs) and much of this is highly uncertain. MMs relating to soil carbon and biomass were not included in the SAC MACC and are thus not included in the PIs discussed herein.Against this background, the work included three key aspects; a review of mitigation methods, the selection of policy instruments and an evaluation of abatement potential and costs for these.The report sets out several important aspects of each policy instrument: rationale, scope, implementation and risks; timeframe for abatement: estimates are given for 2012, 2017 and 2022 to coincide with the end of the first three carbon budget periods; the percentage of the overall mitigation potential which is counted in the UK GHG Inventory and will contribute to UK targets; private cost effectiveness and, to a lesser degree, the policy costs (public and private).In addition to the main project, ADAS was commissioned to extend the SAC analysis since it incorporated only one forestry option. This analysed 12 different forestry options, five which apply to England and the reminder of which might be used elsewhere in the UK and will be reported separately.

This item is categorised as follows

• Subject Collection > Rural policy & development
• Subject Collection > Rural policy & development > UK rural policy
• Subject Collection > Greenhouse Gas
• Subject Collection > Environmental impact
• Subject Collection > Environmental impact > Climate change
• Subject Collection > Environmental impact > Wastes management & pollution control

Additional keywords/tags

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