In her new SNF project, Accounting for Nature: Agriculture and Mitigation in the Era of Global Climate Change, Prof. Shaila Seshia Galvin envisions to utilize the theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches of anthropology to develop a more holistic understanding of climate change mitigation and address several important lacunae in current knowledge. 

The project focuses on the role of accounting practices in mitigation. It explores how accounting shapes and conditions the way that climate change, and the work of mitigation, are interconnected within agriculture. Agricultural activities have long remained on the margins of mitigation efforts and have proved controversial within climate negotiations. Yet agriculture’s potential in achieving future emissions reductions is increasingly recognized. In addition to studying networks of global climate science and policy on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, the project proposes to focus on Canada and India, both significant emitters of greenhouse gas emissions but very different in the structure and composition of their agriculture sectors and in terms of broader economic and human development. These two countries will offering strikingly different contexts for studying mitigation in agrarian settings. To work with her on this research, Professor Galvin is putting together a research team including a postdoctoral fellow and a PhD student.

The outputs from the project will not only be useful in understanding the mitigation of greenhouse gases within the complex agrarian setting but will also be useful to the ongoing negotiations on climate change under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This four-year project with an overall budget of CHF 811’818.- will be based at the Centre for International Environmental Studies.