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Adaptation and mitigation of rural lands are complementary, not mutually exclusive, approaches to tackling climate change, says a new report from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.

The report looks at the way changes in land use practices might be used by poor countries in the wake of an agreement on climate change mitigation at Copenhagen.

Under an agreement at Copenhagen, developed nations would set up a fund to be paid to poor countries as they stop unsustainable land use practices.

This so called 'Carbon finance' for the reduction of emissions from the land use sector is currently at the top of the global agenda. It is being promoted vigorously as a core mitigation strategy for global climate change.

In particular, programs to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD schemes), in which developing countries are compensated for improved protection of existing forests, has emerged as a central component of the global climate protection regime currently being negotiated to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Decisions taken in December 2007 in Bali, at the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 13) started a process aimed at achieving an agreement on REDD by COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The possibility of significant international transfers of funds under a post-Kyoto agreement to finance emission reductions from the land use sector has attracted the attention of policy makers and the public in developing countries.

The ICIMOD report says that estimates of both the global potential and the regional value of carbon payments vary widely depending on the underlying assumptions. However, past experience has shown that benefits can be elusive for developing countries lacking the capacity to implement and participate in complex international agreements.

The report argues for a more comprehensive approach that would include agriculture, forestry, and other land uses’. The full publication is available online from the ICIMOD Books On Line Web Site

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