Managing emissions that lead to climate change and doing so in a
way that allows improvements in incomes and enables sustainable
development to continue are among the greatest challenges of the
coming century. Better scientific knowledge about the
relationship between carbon emissions and livelihoods is
becoming available, but it is limited, patchy, and based on
limited empirical evidence. Research sponsored by the Climate
Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) program of the
CGIAR, in collaboration with the University of Michigan’s
International Forestry Resources and Institutions Program is
showing how new institutions, property rights arrangements, and
agricultural technologies can enable synergistic improvements in
livelihoods and reductions in emissions. The papers prepared
under the auspices of the joint CCAFS/IFRI program were
presented at a conference hosted by the International Food
Policy Research Institute in Washington DC on August 26. The
presenters included leading researchers from aroun