Mitigation of Climate Change to Enhance Food Security: An Analytical Framework

Carbon trading between the industrial and developing world offers an opportunity to maintain global warming below critical limits and to promote global climate equity. The potential has not been realised in sub-Saharan Africa, which is most vulnerable in terms of food security in a changing climate. The objective of this study was to create an analytical framework to identify determining factors to enhance food security through mitigation of climate change. The potential for carbon trading between Finland and Ethiopia was the studied case. A hypothetical analytical framework was created based on literature. It was validated and developed through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions of global and national actors in Finland and Ethiopia and local actors from two contrasting Ethiopian regions. The qualitative analysis highlighted increasing agricultural productivity and facilitating internal national markets as the main means to enhance food security through mitigation of climate change, triggered by generating carbon income. The socio-economic determinants of major importance appeared to be multi-level coherence of policy and action, early access to financial incentives, quality of governance, infrastructure for internal markets, population density, land tenure systems and knowledge about carbon markets, mitigation options and their verification. The main agro-ecological determinants were local hydrology, management history and present land management. The immediate attention of decision-makers is drawn to policy coherence and development of funding, verification and knowledge on carbon sequestration through agricultural management. The analytical framework is concluded to be valid for interaction between industrial countries and specific national and local SSA contexts.