As we discuss later in the paper, much scope remains to extend the reach of the current climate change policy framework – especially in promoting CDM and JI investments. In addition, there are areas where improved agricultural policies and resource management policies could promote mitigation and adaptation objectives, especially in the area of land rights and land management. And there are old and new sources of financing that could be tapped to devise domestic policies and activities that jointly pursue mitigation, adaption and agricultural productivity goals. Even so, there is also scope for parties to the UNFCCC to take action that recognizes the special features of the agricultural sector and remedies shortcomings the in the current agreement.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section we examine sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the ECA region and the world. Section III looks at mitigation opportunities in the region. Section IV examines the policy environment that shapes decisions about which mitigation opportunities in agriculture are tapped and examines project investment outcomes. Section V looks at how policies, project characteristics and markets work to favor some types of investments over others. Section VI discusses the set of ancillary benefits that come with land-use mitigation activities. Section VII describes the potential for finding complementary climate change and resource management policies to promote two complementary sets of mitigation activities in agriculture. A final section concludes.

# **II. Sources of greenhouse gas emissions**

The ECA region is a significant emitter of greenhouse gases, with combined emissions in excess of 4 billion tons CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2005, or roughly 12 percent of global emissions, according to estimates from the World Resource Institute (WRI 2011). This is comparable to the emissions from Western Europe for the period and greater than the emissions from Latin America (table 1.) Emissions are relatively high on a per capita basis as well, averaging about 9.6 tons CO2e (tCO2e) per capita in 2005. This is well below the USCanadian average of 23.3 tons, but well above the Latin American per capita average of 5.4 tons. Emissions fell sharply as the economies of ECA restructured following the dissolution of the Soviet Union from 14 tCO2e per capita in 1990 to 9.1 tCO2e per capita in 2000, only to climb slightly from 2000 to 2005.

As with most regions, the energy sector accounts for most of the region‘s emissions – about 85 percent in 2005. In this respect, the sector composition of emissions is similar to Western Europe. Agriculture accounts for 16 percent of global emissions, although this accounting excludes net changes to sequestered carbon due to land-use – a topic to which we return later. Within the ECA region, agriculture‘s role is smaller and accounts for about 9 percent, a share similar to agriculture‘s 10 percent share in Western Europe (figure 1). Most ECA emissions (74 percent) are in the form of carbon dioxide (figure 2). At around 20 percent, methane‘s share of emissions in ECA is more than twice as high as its share in Western Europe and about two-thirds of the gas‘ share of emissions in Latin America. Though the overall level of emissions has changed significantly since 1990, the aggregate composition of emissions by sector and gas have remained broadly constant over time, as has been the case with global emissions in general (table 2).

The countries in the ECA region comprise a set of highly diverse economies, which is reflected in the scale of emissions for the countries (table 3). Measured in the aggregate, emissions from the Russian Federation dwarf those from other countries in the region. However, a different picture emerges once the emissions are scaled by population (table 4). Per capita emissions are similar in Turkmenistan, Estonia, the Czech Republic, the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. The figure and graphs also show how differences in the relative emission-intensity of the countries over time, with per capita emissions falling rapidly in many ECA countries.

Because a few countries produce most of the region‘s greenhouse gas emissions, regional averages mask a greater variation in the composition of emission sources at the country level and differences in how emissions 3