Archetypes for transforming rural UK land-use to high-carbon store, climate resilient, nature rich and economically productive systems - Part Two

The CCC's advice on the level of Sixth Carbon Budget (for the 2030s) was accepted by Government in 2021. Meeting the Sixth Carbon Budget and the longer-term Net Zero target by 2050 requires contribution from all sectors of the economy, including the agriculture and land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sectors. This will require a transformation in how land is used in the UK, with some land converted from agricultural production for alternative lower-emission uses, such as afforestation, peatland restoration and bioenergy crops. How and where we transition agricultural land to these other land uses remains to be understood.

Transforming the UK's land use is needed so that we can deliver other objectives, including for climate adaptation and nature recovery. The CCC's third Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk (CCRA3) identified priority risk areas as being critical for climate adaptation in the next two years, four of which relate to the natural environment and the use of land:

We need to understand effective action to change land use before further climate change impacts the land, which will enable land managers to protect and enhance the land's ability to maintain ecosystem services delivery.

Our analysis has focused on estimating the impact of land-use change/management on carbon and GHG emissions at the national level (i.e. England and each of the devolved administrations (DAs)). In practice, the changes needed to mitigate and prepare for climate change vary depending on climatic, economic, social and environmental factors, at the farm, catchment and landscape level.

The aim of this tender is to quantify the impact of a set of plausible land-use transitions (towards higher-carbon stores, resilient, productive and nature-rich state for a range of representative rural land use 'archetypes' in England and the UK's DAs , then estimate climate risks to these land-use transitions under various degrees of warming.

This project has been split into two parts:

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