Climate Change, Carbon Offsets and Low Carbon Technologies in Agriculture: A Review

Climate change is posing serious threat to agriculture and food security at global level. Problems faced by agriculture are further exacerbated with serendipitous climate changes, majorly through emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Agriculture, including livestock is a significant contributor of GHG emissions like carbon dioxide(CO 2), methane (CH 4), nitrous oxide (N 2O), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and ozone (O 3) etc. A sustainable reduction in GHG emissions from agriculture is one of the objectives of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) through use of low carbon practices. The present review focuses on the problems of climate change, major GHGs, reasons for GHG emissions, efforts at international level to mitigate GHGs and major treaties involved etc. The concept of carbon offsets, types of carbon offset projects were also discussed. Further, statistics on global trends in GHG emissions, its major contributors were also reviewed. The importance of low carbon patterns in agriculture and their role in significant reduction of GHGs, the key tradeoff issues while adopting low carbon practices, concepts of win-win solution and triple-win situation are thoroughly discussed. The application aspects such as how farmers benefit from the carbon markets and the key policy considerations for making low carbon society through policy implementations at both domestic and international level are also part of our present review. Keywords: Climate Change; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Low Carbon Agriculture; Carbon Offsets; GHG