Addressing Climate Change in the Agriculture Negotiations: a scoping report

This report, Addressing Climate Change and Agriculture: A Scoping Report, is a product of the
Meridian Institute-convened Global Dialogues on Climate Change and Agriculture initiated
in August 2010. Reflecting the special characteristics of the agricultural sector, this report aims
to contribute to continued policy discussion on agriculture and climate change in the context of
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the Convention). Agriculture is
characterized by a number of special features that distinguish it from other sectors, such as the
sector’s role in producing food and meeting basic survival needs; its context and site-specific
nature that makes uniform strategies and solutions ineffective; the vulnerability of the sector to
being directly affected by climate change compared with most other sectors; its adaptation
needs and mitigation potential, mainly through sequestration; and, finally, its complex links to
food security, trade, and broader land-use and forestry policies.