Tapping the emissions reduction potential of China’s food and land use systems

The report identifies supply- and demand-oriented mitigation measures and associated co-benefits in China's food and land use systems, and also explores China’s food and land use policy landscape to identify several institutional and policy barriers to carbon neutrality. [...] In this regard, this paper highlights the climate mitigation potential of the food and land use system and outlines concrete actions that can be taken to achieve it, focusing on China’s domestic climate footprint.2 The paper draws from secondary data, the literature and workshops with the Food and Land Use Coalition‘s (FOLU) China network of academics and civil society working in food and land use. [...] Tapping the emissions reduction potential of China’s food and land use systems to achieve carbon neutrality 8 Finally, food demand is an external driver of total GHG emissions in the food and land use system (Figure 1), as changes in demand can directly influence the inputs and outputs of the food production system and associated emissions. [...] The root causes of the current situation lie in the system barriers at institutional level and the lack of policy coherence between different ministries involved in food production and the management of food distribution and consumption. [...] At the same time, environment and climate change impacts of food and land use systems are not adequately handled, since the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) – which took charge of both issues Tapping the emissions reduction potential of China’s food and land use systems to achieve carbon neutrality 15 between 2018-2021 (Box 2) – lacks capacity on agriculture and food issues.