We were commissioned by the Climate Change Comittee (CCC), alongside the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and University of East Anglia to examine how diversifying rural land use beyond agriculture could boost climate resilience, cut emissions, and deliver wider environmental benefits.
Meeting the UK’s Net Zero target by 2050 will require major shifts in land use that consider wider objectives than just climate mitigation, including for climate adaptation and nature recovery. The CCC wanted to identify where and how land-use changes should be targeted now, before climate impacts reduce the land’s ability to provide vital ecosystem services.
Our analysis draws on the CCC’s latest advice for the Seventh Carbon Budget, which outlines measures to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, such as woodland creation, energy crop planting and peat restoration. We applied these measures to 12 rural “archetypes” – representative land-use types covering 55% of UK rural land – and assessed their impacts in 2035 and 2050 compared with a 2022 baseline.
The archetype transitions illustrate a range of land-use and land management futures and how they contribute to GHG mitigation, agricultural production, ecosystem services and renewable energy generation.
Our analysis revealed:
- The 16 transitions (four archetypes underwent two types of transition) delivered 45-53% of the net emissions reduction by 2050 estimated under the Balanced Pathway in the Seventh Carbon Budget advice.
- Reductions of between 0.2 and 7 MtCO2e by 2050 depending on archetype, with five transitions moving from a net source to a net sink.
- While agricultural income fell in all scenarios, it was offset by new revenue streams and environmental improvements.
- Combined private and social benefits by 2050 were typically £500–£1,500 per hectare higher than the baseline.
This is the first time environmental and socio-economic metrics for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and climate change have been examined at a landscape level across the UK – previous studies looked only at national or devolved levels.
