As climate change makes Scottish summers warmer and wetter, livestock farmers will face new or increased threats from diseases and parasites. One such parasite is Haemonchus contortus, a blood-feeding worm which  infects sheep and goats. 

Historically, this parasite was only a major problem in the southern hemisphere but recently it has become more common in the UK and is causing more disease in sheep. Based on what we know about how Haemonchus  develops from egg to blood-feeding parasite, climate change is likely to increase the problem.

This report looks at interim findings from a model that analyses the rate of parasite development under the likely mean daily temperature and precipitation, based on UK Met Office climate projections (UKCP09).

Creating woodland on agricultural land can be a highly effective way of mitigating climate change. However, planting rates over the last decade have fallen well below the Scottish Government’s aspiration of creating 100,000 hectares of woodland in Scotland over the 2012-2022 period.

Farmers are expected to plant a large proportion of the necessary woodland but evidence suggests that they are reluctant to do so.

This report is a summary of research by ClimateXChange on barriers to woodland expansion. The report also looks at policy measures that may encourage farmers to plant more trees on agricultural land.

Most of Scotland’s rural land – 83% – belongs to private estates. In 2012 half of this land was owned by only 432 individuals or companies. As a result, land estates can be very large and carry out a range of land uses. 

Large land estates used for a variety of activities are likely to be affected by a range of climate change impacts. However, this also provides land estates managers with opportunities and flexibility to adapt to climate change.

Understanding how land estate managers are seeking to integrate adaptation and mitigation via changes in land-use or changes in business and income generation provides valuable insight into how government policies are supporting or hindering progress.

This paper is based on interviews with land estate managers regarding how they see the need for climate change adaptation. It also discusses how policy support for these estates can be more effective in the future.

Biomass could supply 8–11% of the UK’s total primary energy demand by 2020, with the greatest growth in UK domestic supply expected to come from agricultural residues and energy crops.

A significant area of land the United Kingdom could be used for growing such energy crops, without impinging on food production. However, despite policy support for the sector, uptake of these crops has so far been limited.

This policy note summarises the findings of agent-based modelling research investigating the potential of various policy mechanisms to achieve cost effective carbon abatement in the UK energy crop market.

This stakeholder workshop was held in November 2013 to address topics around carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and the potential for soil carbon to be included in whole-farm carbon accounting.

The workshop aimed to identify what is known in this field. It drew on research  from Scotland and referenced work undertaken elsewhere.

The workshop was attended by representatives from the Scottish Government, Higher Education Institutions and Industry from the UK and Ireland, presenting insights into the current state and potential of soil carbon accounting in the context of climate policy.

ClimateXChange researchers presented the cost and potential of carbon abatement from the UK perennial energy crop market at a workshop supported by WholeSEM (Whole System Energy Modelling), a new RCUK funded collaboration between UCL, Surrey, Imperial and Cambridge.

The initiative aims to understand:
– How energy demand co-evolves with changes in practice, supply, and policy
– How the endogenous, uncertain, and path dependent process of technological change will impact future energy systems
– How the energy supply-demand system can be optimised over multiple energy vectors and infrastructures
– What are the major future physical and economic interactions and stresses between the energy system and the broader environment.

Useful links

Changes in temperature and rainfall can affect the spread and proliferation of infection-causing (pathogenic) bacteria. Bacteria thrive in warm, wet conditions, for example, whilst increased ‘run-off’ caused by heavy rain can assist bacteria to spread from one area to another.

Some of the most dangerous human diseases are caused by zoonotic pathogens, which are transmitted between animals and humans. Many of these pathogens are capable of interacting with alternative hosts and environments, such as plants and soil.  This means that plants can play an important part in the transmission of pathogens, either to other animals through grazing or feed, or to humans through edible crops.

As the climate changes, it is increasingly important to understand how these bacteria are transmitted from one environment to another so that infection may be avoided.

This paper reports on experimental research carried out by the James Hutton institute and explores how climate change may affect the transmission and adaptation of zoonotic pathogens to various environments.

This workshop highlighted the key food security issues likely to influence policy development, and explored how these relate to emissions reduction objectives. The question of how we achieve the right balance between food security and climate change mitigation is a key policy challenge for Scotland, and indeed for societies across the world.

The workshop concluded that:

• Solutions for balancing the global needs for both food security and climate change mitigation lie in better land use planning, reducing waste and changing diets.
• Better insight is needed into how best to effect social and behavioural change related to food production and consumption.
• Nutrition security remains key to public health and should be a condition for any policies impacting on food supply and consumption, including climate change mitigation actions.
• Relating food security and climate change mitigation is a high level policy activity. Different government policy areas should work more closely together to achieve wide reaching, integrated solutions.

Four leading experts introduced the key issues.  Prof Tim Benton, University of Leeds described the drivers of future food supply and demand, and the trade-offs involved in trying to meet our different objectives for the food system. Prof Pete Smith, Science Director of ClimateXChange, University of Aberdeen highlighted some ways of co-delivering food security and climate change mitigation and noted that demand side options are under-developed. Prof Richard Tiffin, University of Reading outlined key food price trends and discussed the impact of these on the UK, particularly on poorer households. Prof Paul Haggarty, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health stressed that a healthy diet can hit both health and climate objectives.

Several themes emerged from participants’ discussions, notably around:

• behaviour change;
• the potentially differential health impacts of food insecurity;
• waste avoidance; and
• agreement on the need to bring diverse policy areas together and to work better across traditional policy boundaries on this complex issue.

This report discusses options for a future forest carbon market in the UK. Forests provide ‘climate services’ by  removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing  it as  carbon. This research looks at whether the owners of UK forests could benefit more from maintaining and increasing the stock of carbon locked up in their forests. This could for example be done through some form of tradable carbon credit.

The research looked at:

• national and international mechanisms to administer the flow of carbon credits generated by forestry;

• the potential of UK forests to generate Kyoto-compliant carbon offsets;

• detailed options for developing and operating future forest carbon markets in the UK;

• barriers to the above options and how they could potentially be overcome;

• the likely scale of impacts on the forest sector in the UK.

The findings are from a desk-based literature review and a set of five semi-structured interviews with key experts including carbon brokers/traders, government officials and UN staff during March and April 2013. The project was commissioned by ClimateXChange for the Forestry Commission.

The Scottish Government’s Rural Development Programme (SRDP) is the main fund supporting rural development in Scotland. It supports economic, environmental and social measures to encourage sustainable development within rural Scotland.
The programme provides funding for projects covering farming, forestry, rural enterprise and business development, diversification and rural tourism.

ClimateXChange was asked to review the impact of the programme’s Agri-Environment options, i.e. the suggested incentives to farmers and land managers to ensure they manage their land in an environmentally sensitive way.

This report:

• assesses the existing SRDP options in relation to their impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or carbon sequestration;
• evaluates potential additional benefits from the SRDP options with regards to their GHG impacts; and
• provides an easy to use matrix of the potential SRDP options.

The research found that most SRDP measures provide benefits across a range of indicators of GHG savings and reduced nutrient losses. However, there is significant geographical variation in how applicable different measures are. This can limit their potential for greenhouse gas mitigation at the national scale.