Land use and land use changes can greatly contribute to long term global change. Vegetation and soil commonly serve as a carbon sink, accumulating carbon dioxide that is disrupted, the accumulated carbon dioxide likewise methane and nitrous oxide is emitted, and absorbed by the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous are greenhouse gases, that causes global warming (The Environmental Literacy Council, 2015).
Land use change has ample effects on climate change. The leading ones are detectable through the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (NO2) and methane (CH4) disturbs the atmosphere as a result of human actions, especially over the last 100-200 years (Arneth and Agreiter 2015). The greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere can be determined directly from a confirmation of observation stations around the world. Like, in air bubbles trapped in glaciers and these air bubbles can show as a fine record of green house gas levels hundreds and thousands of years ago (Arneth and Agreiter 2015). The clearing of land, can lead can lead to soil degradation, erosion and the leaching of nutrients; which perhaps reduce its capability to save carbon sink. This reduction in the capability to save carbon can lead to further carbon dioxide remaining in the atmosphere by that increasing the entire amount of greenhouse gases (The Environmental Literacy Council, 2015).
Furthermore, changes in land use, particularly those related with deforestation annd increase of agricultural yield for food, contribute about 15% of global emissions of GHG. Presently, less than 1% of global agricultural land is used for panting biofuel crops and land used related with bioenergy produce a very small percentage of global changes in land use (Berndes et al 2010).
Types of land use changes
- Direct land use change: The direct land use change is human caused. The impacts of land use on the climate is mainly depends on the kind of land cover existing in a region. The examples comprises of deforestation, reforestation, afforestation, agriculture aand urbanization (The Environmental Literacy Council, 2015). In areas with excessive snowfall, reforestation or afforestation can make the land to reflect fewer sunlight, following intake of more heat on the land. This could as well, cause a net warming effect in spite of the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. On the otherhand, urbanization could impact the climate greatly. The neighbourhood climates is likely to be warmer as a result of increased quantity of heat generated within a highly populated region. Average temperatures of city centres could escalate moreas as a result of high density of construction substances like sidewalk and roofing materials since they are likely to capture rather than reflect sunlight (The Environmental Literacy Council, 2015).
- Indirect land use change: The significant manner that changes in climate could disturb land use is via higher mean annual temperatures, changed precipitation patterns, and more continual and severe weather actions. Changes in temperature and rainfall could escalate the danger of insect infestation epidemic, harmful to forests and other plants (The Environmental Literacy Council, 2015).
Objectives of EU adaptation policy for land use change
According to European commission climate actions; “on 20 July 2016 European commission presented a legislative proposal to integrate greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) into the 2030 climate and energy framework. The proposal follows the agreement with EU leaders in October 2014 that all sectors should contribute to the EU´s 2030 emission reduction target, including the land use sector. It is also in line with the Paris Agreement, which points out to the critical role of the land use sector in reaching our long-term climate mitigation objectives”.
Ensuring fair and cost-effective achievement of targets: The recommendation control sustains current resilence under the present Effort Sharing Decision. This recommendation supports the resilence for Member countries. Such as if a member country has net emissions from land use and forestry, they could use appropriation from the effort sharing regulation to settle its no debit commitment. It means that each member country is expected to repay for the assumed CO2 emissions by a commensurate removal of CO2 from the atmosphere via activity in the same sector. Hence if a member fell down their trees (deforestation), they must repay the following emissions by planting new trees (afforestation) or fixing the present forests and croplands (European Commission Climate Action, 2013). Another effort sharing regulation is banking, borrowing, buying and selling. This allows member countries the resilence to handle with yearly variations in emissions over the 2021-2030 duration as a result of weather or eonomic circumstances. Member countries can purchase and trade allocations from and to other member countries. This is an effective medium to ensure cost-effectiveness as it gives member countries to handle emissions reductions where they are unexpensive and the revenue can be used to provide infrastructure (European Commission Climate Action, 2013). Moreover, there is also new flexibliliy to access credits from land use sector over the total duration 2021-2030 from various land use type to abide by their internal targets. All member countries are qualified to make use of this resilence, while connection to this credit is higher for member countries with a greater contribution of emissions from agriculture. In accordance with EU officers direction, this admits that there is a minimal mitigation possible for emissions from the agriculture sector (European Commission Climate Action, 2013).
Biomass: The emissions of biomass used in energy would be listed and calculated for any member countries 2030 climate commitments. This settles the extensive assessment that emissions from biomass in energy production are not presently reported for under EU law. Being that forest management is the control base of supply of biomass for energy and wood production (European Commission Climate Action, 2013). The agency motion clarify and promote and creates a new EU control measure for overseeing how member countries determine emissions and discharge from activities in their forests and agricultural use (European Commission Climate Action, 2013).