The UK agricultural industry has published its first report on progress made in delivering its Greenhouse Gas Action Plan.

The World Resources Institute have developed a database that lists policies and measures in 18 developing countries that have an impact on climate change.  

This discussion paper questions the idea that ‘greener’ economic growth can achieve the reductions in GHG emissions that are necessary – a point that was also powerfully made by Tim Jackson in his 2009  book Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a finite planet.

The UK dairy sector has published its first report which looks at the carbon footprints of a selection of British dairy farms with a view to establishing a baseline against which progress can be measured.   The study reveals very substantial differences in the GHG footprints expressed as CO2 eq/kg fat corrected milk, of different farms, and also finds that there is more variation between farms, than between production systems.  It also concludes that there is no one variable (eg milk yield, fertiliser use or energy consumption) that accounts for most of the variation between farms.

Edited by Bruce Frayne, Caroline Moser and Gina Ziervogel, this new book is published by Earthscan (now part of Routledge). 

Edited by Eva Wollenberg, Maja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom, Maryanne Grieg-Gran and Alison Nihart, this book reviews the state of agricultural climate change mitigation globally, with a focus on identifying the feasibility, opportunities and challenges for achieving mitigation among smallholder farmers. 

An interesting paper that looks at adaptation and mitigation options for farmers, with a particular focus on smallholders. It emphasises the need to address not just the science/technological aspect of mitigation/adaptation but also the social and institutional/knowledge infrastructure.

For analysis and commentary on the outcome from Durban, you may want to  have a look at the following links – we're copying many of them from Carbon Brief’s always useful and interesting daily e-newsletter: see here for more http://www.carbonbrief.org/

A gloomy assessment of climate change risks for african agriculture.