natural systems and by market or welfare changes in hu­man systems. Planned adaptation is the result of a deliberate policy decision, based on an awareness that conditions have changed or are about to change and that action is required to return to, maintain, or achieve a desired state. It could also take place at the community level, triggered by knowl­edge of the future impacts of climate change and realization that extreme events experienced in the past are likely to be repeated in the future. The first means the implementation of existing knowledge and technology in response to the changes experienced, while the latter means the increased adaptive capacity by improving or changing institutions and policies, and investments in new technologies and in­frastructure to enable effective adaptation activities.
     Many autonomous adaptation options are largely ex­tensions or intensifications of existing risk-management or production-enhancement activities. These include:
•   Changing varieties/species to fit more appropriately to the changing thermal and/or hydrological conditions;
•   Changing timing of irrigation and adjusting nutrient management;
•   Applying water-conserving technologies and promoting agrobiodiversity for increased resilience of the agricul­tural systems; and
•   Altering timing or location of cropping activities and the diversification of agriculture [Global Chapter 6].

Planned adaptations include specific policies are aiming at reducing poverty and increasing livelihood security, provi­sion of infrastructure that supports/enables integrated spa­tial planning and the generation and dissemination of new knowledge and technologies and management practices tai­lored to anticipated changes [NAE Chapter 3]. It is impor­tant to note that policy-based adaptations to climate change will interact with, depend on or perhaps even be just a sub­set of policies on natural resource management, human and animal health, governance and political rights, among many others. These represent examples of the "mainstreaming" of climate change adaptation into policies intended to enhance broad resilience.
     The extent to which development and sustainability goals will be affected by climate change depends on how well communities are able to cope with current climate change and variability, as well as to other stresses such as land degradation, poverty, lack of economic diversification, institutional stability and conflict [Global Chapter 6]. In­dustrialized world agriculture, generally situated at high latitudes and possessing economies of scale, good access to information, technology and insurance programs, as well as favorable terms of global trade, is positioned relatively well to adapt to climate change. By contrast small-scale rain-fed production systems in semiarid and subhumid zones, which continuously face significant seasonal and inter-annual cli­mate variability, are characterized by poor adaptive capacity due to the marginal nature of the production environment and the constraining effects of poverty and land degrada­tion [Global Chapter 6]. Sub-Saharan Africa and CWANA are especially vulnerable regions [CWANA Chapter 1; SSA Chapter 1]. The resilience of dry-land ecosystems to deficits in moisture, temperature extremes and salinity is still inad­equately understood.

     The effectiveness of AKST's adaptation efforts is likely to vary significantly between and within regions, depending on exposure to climate impacts and adaptive capacity, the latter depending very much on economic diversification and wealth and institutional capacity. The viability of traditional actions taken by people to lessen the impacts of climate change in arid and semi arid regions depends on the ability to anticipate hazard patterns, which are getting increasingly erratic. Early detection and warning using novel GIS-based methodologies such as those employed by the Conflict Early Warning and Response Network (CEWARN) and the Global Public Health Information Network (G-PHIN) could play a useful role.
     Bringing climate prediction to bear on the needs of ag­riculture requires increasing observational networks in the most vulnerable regions, further improvements in forecast accuracy, integrating seasonal prediction with information at shorter and longer time scales, embedding crop models within climate models, enhanced use of remote sensing, integration into agricultural risk management, enhanced stakeholder participation, and commodity trade and stor­age applications [Global Chapter 6].

Mitigation options. A number of options, technologies and techniques to reduce or off-set the emissions of GHGs al­ready exist and could:
•   Lower levels of methane or nitrous oxide through in­creasing the efficiency of livestock production, improv­ing animals' diets and using feed additives to increase food conversion efficiency, reducing enteric fermenta­tion and consequent methane emissions, aerating ma­nure before composting and recycling agricultural and forestry residues to produce biofuels.
•   Lower nitrous oxides emissions through matching ma­nure and fertilizer application to crop needs and op­timizing nitrogen up-take efficiently by controlling the application rates, method and timing.
•   Reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degra­dation, including policy measures to address drivers of deforestation, improve forest management, forest law enforcement, forest fire management, improve silvicul-tural practices and promote afforestation and reforesta­tion to increase carbon storage in forests [Global Chap­ters 1, 3, 5, 6; SSA Chapter 3]
•   Improve the soil carbon retention by promoting biodi­versity as a tool for climate mitigation and adaptation and enhance the management of residues, using zero/re­duced tillage, including legumes in crop rotation, reduc­ing the fallow periods and converting marginal lands into woodlots. [Global Chapters 1, 3, 5, 6; SSA Chapter 3]
•   Support low-input farming agriculture that relies on re­newable sources of energy.

It is important that efforts aimed at addressing emissions reductions mitigation from agriculture carefully consider all potential GHG emissions. For example, efforts to reduce CH4 emissions in rice could lead to greater N2O emissions through changes in soil N dynamics. Similarly, conservation tillage for soil carbon sequestration can result in elevated N2O emissions through increased agrochemicals use and ac­celerated denitrification in soils [Global Chapter 6].