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The Kyoto Protocol negotiated in the mid-1990s to address climate change adaptation and mitigation will be replaced by a post-Kyoto agreement in 2012. The new agreement under negotiation needs to seal the policy gaps in adaptation and mitigation that were omitted or excluded from Kyoto on account of scientific uncertainties. Particular attention needs to be given to the potential of land in all its dimensions considering its high capacity to store carbon. Land stores twice as much organic carbon as vegetation and the atmosphere combined. This policy brief draws attention to the gaps in the existing provisions on land-use for climate change mitigation, with a specific focus on degraded lands and drylands in particular. It proposes the recognition of soil carbon restoration in degraded areas, action in agriculture, and increased synergies between the Rio sister conventions as potential approaches to enhance climate change mitigation. To this end, it proposes the inclusion of investment measures that promote soil carbon sequestration in degraded lands and for agriculture in the portfolio of finance mechanisms envisioned in the post-Kyoto agreement now under negotiation.
