Addressing climate change cause and effect on land cover and land use in South Asia

- Using South Asia as a case study, we investigate the role of trade liberalization and agricultural intensification in mitigating climate change cause and effects on land use and emissions.
- Global full trade liberalization on all goods is the optimum policy for South Asia despite significant global deforestation.
- Our results indicate that mitigation responses to climate change are location specific and no one trade policy is suitable at the regional and global levels.
- Agricultural intensification by improving productivity growth is the best strategy in land-based emissions mitigation.

This paper evaluates the role of trade liberalization and agricultural intensification in mitigating climate change cause and effects on land use and emissions using a computable general equilibrium model. Our results indicate that cropland expansion triggered by climate-induced crop productivity changes results in deforestation and increases emissions in South Asia and globally. Global full trade liberalization on all goods is the optimum policy for South Asia despite significant global deforestation, but for the world, unilateral partial trade liberalization on all goods is a more appropriate policy while ensuring a considerable emissions reduction for South Asia. These results indicate that mitigation responses to climate change are location specific and no one trade policy is suitable at the regional and global levels. Lastly, agricultural intensification by improving productivity growth is the best strategy in land-based emissions mitigation, thereby avoiding the transformation of forest and pasture lands for agricultural cultivation both at regional and global levels.