12. Climate Change, Food Security, and Trade: Navigating Through Multiple Crises

https://​www.​worldbank.​org/​en/​news/​statement/​2022/​07/​15/​joint-statement-by-the-heads-of-the-food-and-agriculture-organization-international-monetary-fund-world-bank-group-world#:​~:​text=​By%20​June%20​2022%20​the%20​number,82%20​countries%20​according%20​to%20​WFP.

There are essentially two main contrasting approaches that are currently available to provide information on emissions related to trade. The first is lifecycle analysis (LCA) that uses a bottom-up approach to estimate carbon footprints at the product level. Carbon footprints are calculated using finely granulated micro-level data. Typically, this approach will include measures of all greenhouse gases, when relevant, including methane and N₂O. While guidelines for implementing LCA have been developed by the ISO, there is no single commonly applied standard for LCA with regard to carbon footprinting, which makes it difficult to aggregate across products to draw conclusions at the sector level or to make comparisons across countries for a given product. In addition, there are relatively few LCAs that include production and export from developing countries, and especially low-income countries. Differences arise in the choice of system boundaries (where the analysis begins and ends) and the data on which to base carbon content calculations. So, while the bottom-up approach can be used to derive national level emissions, in practice, the demands on data are huge, especially for developing countries, and there are tremendous challenges in ensuring that calculations are comparable across sectors and countries.

A more appropriate source of data on emissions for sector and country level analysis is a top-down approach using national greenhouse gas emissions inventories and input–output tables. Different databases vary in emissions coverage and sector and country detail. Here, we use GTAP data, which goes further in coverage of different GHGs, has more recent data, is straightforward to link to trade data, and has a greater country disaggregation, with many developing countries included. One downside is that the level of sector detail is limited relative to some of the other databases. The emissions data are described in Chepeliev and Corong (2022) and follow the emissions embodied into trade (EEBT) method, whereby exported products generate the same emissions per unit as domestically supplied commodities of a given sector.

Methane emissions from trade and mitigation opportunities through technology transfer are discussed in more detail in Brenton (2023).

Methane has a warming potential that is more than 80 times that of CO₂ over 20 years and has contributed to around 30% of rising global temperatures. Reducing methane emissions is seen as one of the best ways to combat climate change as sharp cuts can quickly lead to a net cooling effect. The IPCC suggests that a fall in global methane emissions of 50% by the 2040s could attenuate the increase in global temperatures by as much as 0.3 °C.

Support is being provide by the $221 m World Bank funded Vietnam Agriculture Transformation Project which is benefiting around one million people in the Mekong Delta and Central Highlands.

See World Bank Trade Watch, July–September 2022, https://​documents1.​worldbank.​org/​curated/​en/​0994443110222208​82/​pdf/​IDU026d6c21108fa​504c770ae550637a​6bc89aa7.​pdf

Statement by Senegalese Minister of Economy, Amadou Hott, at the Group of 20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Bali on July 15, 2022.

https://​www.​afdb.​org/​en/​news-and-events/​africas-fertilizer-sector-and-banks-high-5s-36830. On the other hand, other countries apply fertilizers at much higher, and potentially wasteful, rates. If, for example, China was to reduce its fertilizer use to the global average rate per hectare, it would free up fertilizer equal to twice the amount Africa uses per year.

Keyser and Sela (2020).

This section borrows heavily from Brenton et al. (2022).

There are increasing efforts to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions from the agriculture and food sector, including in World Bank-financed projects.

Kc et al. (2018).

See Nin-Pratt et al. (2009), for example.