Climate Change

Climate insurance, not just crop insurance

Today, the Senate Agriculture Committee will hear arguments to expand the federal crop insurance program in the 2012 Farm Bill. Most likely, proponents of this expansion will point to the devastating crop losses wrought by extreme weather last year. Indemnity payouts for 2011 have so far cost taxpayers a record $10 billion, a number expected to grow as claims are processed.

Three IATP proposals on climate change

IATP has submitted three short papers in response to requests for comment from the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (LCA) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Submission of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy to the UNFCCC on issues related to agriculture for consideration by the SBSTA in the context of Article 4.1(c) on cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions

The COP, in its decision 2/CP.17, requested the SBSTA to consider issues related to agriculture at its 36th session, in the context of deliberations on Cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions, in order to enhance the implementation of Article 4, paragraph 1(c), of the Convention.    

Submission in response to the request for comments by the Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: New market mechanism

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Submission in response to the request for comments by the Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The following submission consists of three parts; 1) a short analysis of the role of the carbon price signal in the climate investment landscape; 2) an overview of the relatively small extent to which carbon emissions markets have provid

Q&A: Why an agriculture work program at the UNFCCC is the wrong approach for farmers, animal welfare and development

There is global consensus that the agricultural sector is severely affected by climate change and also contributes to it. Debates are on in numerous national and multilateral forums about the right ways to address these challenges.

WEBINAR: A Risky Proposition: Crop Insurance and Climate Change

In 2011, a year of record floods and droughts, federal spending on crop insurance outpaced commodity crop subsidies. What does it mean to make crop insurance the largest source of federal support for farmers with the growing threat of climate change?

Learning from the Indirect Land Use Change Debate

For the last few years, environmental advocates and ethanol producers have been mired in a debate over something known as indirect land use change (ILUC), a measure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by, but not directly associated with, biofuel production. The controversy centers on these questions: Does ethanol demand in the U.S.

Lethal symmetry: the Durban climate outcome

The chief U.S. climate negotiator, Todd Stern, explained to the delegates at the Conference of Parties (COP) at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that the United States sought “legal symmetry” among all parties.

The “deal” in Durban: What happened on agriculture at the climate talks?

There is little doubt that agriculture is both affected by and directly affects climate change. Exactly how to address agriculture within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UFCCC), however, is not easy to answer. Before Durban, negotiating text had been circulating since before the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, virtually unchanged for two years.