The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL), also known as the "Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems", is a landmark study from 2019 by 107 experts from 52 countries. The SRCCL provides a comprehensive overview of the entire land-climate system for the first time and decided to enlist land as a "critical resource". The IPCC's 50th session (IPCC-50) formally adopted the SRCCL's Summary for policymakers (SPM) and approved the underlying report. The SPM and the full text of Special Report on Climate Change and Land—in an unedited form—were released on 8 August 2019. The report is over 1,300 pages long and includes the work of 107 experts from 52 countries. The report is the second of three Special Reports in the current Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cycle which began in 2015 and will be completed in 2022. The first was Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, and the third is the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) released on 25 September 2019. The AR6 cycle is considered by the IPCC to be their most ambitious since the panel was formed in 1988.
Previous IPCC assessments cycles and special reports Since it was established in 1988, the IPCC provides the governments of their 195 member countries, with periodic comprehensive summaries of scientific assessments of the drivers of climate change, including current impact and potential risks. The reports also put forward possible responses in terms of adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC has published five Assessment Reports, including the 1990 IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR), the 1995 IPCC Second Assessment Report also known as Climate Change 1995, the 2001 Third Assessment Report, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) also known as Climate Change 2007, and the Fifth Assessment Report. Each report also includes the "full scientific and technical assessment of climate change, generally in three volumes, one for each of the Working Groups of the IPCC, together with their Summaries for Policymakers, and a Synthesis Report." SRCCL is part of a series of Special Reports and Assessments in the sixth assessment report (AR6) cycle which began in 2015—following the election of a new Bureau—and concludes in 2022. The IPCC considers the current assessment cycle to be their most ambitious in the 30-year history of the panel. So far, during this cycle, along with the SRCCL, IPCC has published the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C in October 2018, and the May 2019 Refinement. The third in the series, the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), is upcoming. As well, in March 2018, the IPCC held a conference Archived 2019-08-09 at the Wayback Machine in preparation for a special report on cities and climate change in the seventh assessment cycle. Since its inception, the IPCC had also published over a dozen Special Reports which are included in the ARs. The Special report also includes a Summary for policymakers providing an "assessment of a specific issue and generally follow the same structure as a volume of an Assessment Report and Methodology Reports which are "materials that provide practical guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories."
Sections
SRCCL summary for policymakers (SPM)
There are four sections in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). The first deals with "people, land and climate in a warming world"; the second covers "adaptation and mitigation response options"; the third focuses on "enabling response options" and the fourth considers "action in the near-term". In the first section, the SPM says that human-induced land degradation—with increased consumption and population growth causing more land use for "food, feed, fibre, timber and energy"—has negatively affected ice-free land area globally. Approximately "25–30% of total food produced is lost or wasted" while "821 million people are undernourished" and "2 billion adults now being overweight or obese." In part two, the SPM says that "increased food productivity, dietary choices and food losses and waste reduction, can reduce demand for land conversion." In part 3, suggested response options that will also help eradicate poverty, include "improving access to markets, securing land tenure, factoring environmental costs into food, making payments for ecosystem services, and enhancing local and community collective action". The SPM says that, "Many sustainable land management technologies and practices are profitable within three to 10 years (medium confidence). While they can require upfront investment, actions to ensure sustainable land management can improve crop yields and the economic value of pasture. Land restoration and rehabilitation measures improve livelihood systems and provide both short-term positive economic returns and longer-term benefits in terms of climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity and enhanced ecosystem functions and services."
Chapters The SRCCL consists of seven chapters, Chapter 1: Framing and Context, Chapter 2: Land-Climate Interactions, Chapter 3: Desertification, Chapter 4: Land Degradation, Chapter 5: Food Security, Chapter 5 Supplementary Material, Chapter 6: Interlinkages between desertification, land degradation, food security and GHG fluxes: Synergies, trade-offs and Integrated Response Options, and Chapter 7: Risk management and decision making in relation to sustainable development. Like all IPCC reports, the SRCCL includes a "Summary for Policymakers",
Chapter 1: Framing and context
In the executive summary of Chapter 1, the authors described the land area on earth as "finite" saying that sustainable land use is "fundamental for human well-being." One of the authors of "Framing and Context", Karlsruhe Institute of Technology's Almut Arneth, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) journalists that "The surface of the earth is limited, the population is growing, and more acreage is needed for food and for fibres that can be used for clothing."
Chapter 2: Land-climate interactions According to the 8 August Carbon Brief in-depth article on the SRCCL, Chapter 2 provides data on livestock methane emissions, about 66% is agricultural methane" and "about 33% of global methane emissions" come from livestock.
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