Land matters for cost effective climate change mitigation

We use the Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) framework REMIND-MAgPIE to analyze the three-sided trade-off between mitigation in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector, the energy and industry sector, as well as the climate objectives. We show that without AFOLU contributions to mitigation limiting peak warming to 1.6°C is out of reach, while policy costs for keeping warming below 1.7°C almost triple to 23 trillion US$ compared to a scenario with AFOLU sector mitigation. A portfolio of options alleviates energy sector decarbonization substantially, while putting the AFOLU sector under stress by increasing food expenditures and demanding strong agricultural intensification. Largest trade-offs between energy and AFOLU sector mitigation follow from stringent ecosystem protection/restoration and energy crop cultivation. Pricing of agricultural non-CO2 emissions provides smaller climate benefits and has the largest impacts on food prices, so it needs to be implemented with care. Finally, trade-offs between mitigation policies in the AFOLU and the energy sector and between climate targets require fine-balancing and judicious actions.