Greenhouse gas mitigation from Chinese agriculture (technical potential, economic efficiency and equity impacts)

据估计，农业温室气体排放量占中国全国排放量的20%（国际能源署2007年）。有针对性的农场措施所带来的农业缓解是一种宝贵的农业生态系统服务，还能带来协同效益，例如减少对水的扩散污染。缓解政策激励措施也可能支持社会公平和减贫目标。农业缓解技术大多为人所知，因此该部门以相对较低的成本提供了早期行动的潜力。对整个中国社会而言，农业缓解方案有可能支持包容性和扶贫增长，同时激励对生态系统服务的可持续管理。本提案旨在建立一个研究联盟，就中国农业温室气体减排措施提出与实践和政策相关的建议。该联盟将把生物物理学和社会科学研究人员与丰富的国家和全球经验结合起来，确定适合中国不同地区和不同农业类型的具有成本效益的减排做法。他们将提出支持广泛采用的政策措施，同时解决包容性扶贫增长、气候适应以及环境和食品安全的需求。建立联盟的过程将涉及研究人员、政策顾问、决策者和其他最终用户（例如碳市场参与者），并寻求与其他相关的正在进行的倡议建立协同联系。至关重要的是，它将以现有举措为基础，将（关于缓解的）生物物理证据与分析缓解政策的成本效益和分配影响的相关经济框架结合起来。中国多个部委和省份以及市场参与者对农业的减排潜力都有浓厚的兴趣。但国家政策尚未就农业在中国减缓气候变化计划中的作用给出一致的看法。关于农业的生物物理潜力的证据越来越多，但对不同缓解做法或支持政策的成本和效益的经济分析却很少。这种分析将有助于该部门制定有效的预算，从而为制定有利于穷人的缓解激励措施的适当自愿和基于市场的工具提供基础。要满足这些政策信息需求，就需要一个跨学科的研究方案，以改进生物物理、社会和经济问题的研究和证据基础。该财团开发项目将针对总结部分列出的五个广泛的项目目标。项目描述中概述了五个具体的财团目标，包括10项活动。这些项目旨在建立一个涵盖中国农业减缓潜力所有主要领域的研究专家网络。这些专门知识将汇集在这个项目中，目的是制定一个连贯的后续研究方案。由于一流的中国研究人员得到了充足的资助，因此只有在参与该联盟提供真正的附加价值时，才能出现合作研究。项目合作伙伴在自然科学、经济科学和社会科学方面具有互补的背景，并具有丰富的国内外研究经验。他们与中国的主要研究机构有持续的谅解备忘录，并与许多中国领先的研究人员在基础、应用和政策研究方面有长期合作。这些品质将被用来将最合适的机构和个人聚集在一起，发展创新的跨学科合作形式，为中国的环境带来切实的附加价值。将探讨与其他发展中国家倡议的联系，以便与其他发展中国家分享中国工作的经验教训。

Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions have been estimated at 20% of China's national emissions (IEA 2007). Agricultural mitigation from targeted on-farm measures represent a valuable agro-ecosystem service and also deliver co-benefits, e.g. in terms of reduced diffuse pollution to water. Mitigation policy incentives can also potentially support social equity and poverty alleviation goals. Agricultural mitigation technologies are mostly known, so the sector offers potential for early actions at relatively low cost. For Chinese society as a whole, an agricultural mitigation programme offers potential to support inclusive and pro-poor growth while incentivising sustainable management of ecosystem services. This proposal is for activities to build a research consortium to generate practice- and policy-relevant recommendations on measures for mitigation of greenhouse gases in Chinese agriculture. The consortium will combine biophysical, and social science researchers with extensive national and global experience to identify cost-effective emission mitigation practices suited to different regions and farm types in China. They will suggest policy measures for supporting widespread adoption while addressing needs for inclusive pro-poor growth, climate adaptation and environmental and food safety. The consortium-building process will involve researchers, policy advisors, policy makers and other end-users (e.g. carbon market actors), and seek to establish synergistic links with other related ongoing initiatives. Crucially it will build on existing initiatives by integrating biophysical evidence (on mitigation) with relevant economic frameworks for analysing cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts of mitigation policy. There is strong interest in agriculture's mitigation potential in several ministries and provinces in China, as well as among market actors. But national policies have yet to present a coherent view on the role of agriculture in China's climate mitigation plans. There is growing evidence on agriculture's biophysical potential, but very little economic analysis of costs and benefits of different mitigation practices or supporting policies. Such analysis would facilitate the development of an efficient budget from the sector and thereby provide a basis for developing appropriate voluntary and market-based instruments for the mitigation incentives that can favour the poor. Meeting these policy information needs would require an inter-disciplinary research programme that improves the research and evidence basis on biophysical, social and economic issues. This consortium development project will target the five broad project objectives listed in the summary section. Five specific consortium objectives encompassing 10 activities are outlined in the Project description. These aim to develop a network of research expertise covering all the main areas of agricultural mitigation potential in China. This expertise will be brought together in this project with the aim of developing a coherent programme of follow-on research. Since top-class Chinese researchers are well-funded, it is expected that collaborative research can only emerge when participation in the consortium provides real additional value. The project partners have complementary backgrounds in natural, economic and social sciences, and rich experience of research both inside and outside of China. They have ongoing MoUs with the major research institutes in China, as well as long-term collaborations with numerous leading Chinese researchers in basic, applied and policy research. These qualities will be used to bring together the most appropriate institutions and individuals to develop innovative forms of interdisciplinary collaboration that will deliver tangible value added in the Chinese context. Links with other developing country initiatives will be explored in readiness for sharing lessons from the work in China with other developing countries.