Latest Climate + Agriculture News [December 16, 2009]

USDA to ramp up spending on agricultural climate change mitigation research.

“No agriculture – no deal.“

Uganda to start mock trials on a drought resistant maize variety in 2010.

UN expert says climate change is a ticking time bomb for global food security.

Deal to save forests nearly complete?

Confronting Climate Change in Agriculture and Forestry

A wide cross section of farmers, researchers and development experts spoke with one voice today at a side event held in conjunction with the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, calling on negotiators to address food security, rural poverty and the threat of climate change through an integrated approach that embraces both the forestry and agricultural communities.

After the event, representatives of the two communities issued a joint statement, which reflects the outcomes of three separate but closely related events held over the last several days: including a COP15 side event on Climate Change and Food Security, together with Agriculture and Rural Development Day and Forest Day 3.

Following is the joint statement:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon in agriculture and forests must be an essential component of any strategy to keep global warming below the 2 degree Celsius threshold. Climate adaptation and mitigation measures must have multiple sustainable development benefits, including conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The communities:

• Agree that it is critical for food security to be integrated into the shared vision of the Long-Term Cooperative Action text in order to open the door for adaptation and mitigation support.
• Urge climate negotiators to agree on the early establishment of an agricultural work program under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA).
• Look for agreement that REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) include agriculture, forestry and other land uses.
• Believe that the LULUCF (land use, land-use change and forestry) accounting system needs to be favorable to agriculture.

The agricultural community is committed to playing an active role in reducing emissions, while increasing the productivity and sustainability of agriculture. We recognize that agriculture must nearly double food production to meet the demands of a growing population expected to reach 9 billion by mid-century while minimizing the sector’s emissions.

The forestry community is committed to helping design and implement new mechanisms to mobilize forests for climate mitigation and adaptation, while exploiting synergies with sustainable development objectives and managing associated risks. We recognize the significance of forest-based emissions and the cost-effectiveness of early action to reduce them. The most important drivers of deforestation originate from outside the forestry sector, including agriculture. There are also significant opportunities to correct current market and governance failures that lead to perverse outcomes for climate change and food security. Forest- and agriculture-based adaptation strategies are available but are not yet fully appreciated by policymakers and the general public.

Significant financial resources and political will are needed to better address food security, slow deforestation and forest degradation, and reach emission reduction targets. Investments must be transparent and additional to support for global food security and rural development. These resources must be accessible to all stakeholders, including researchers, civil society and especially forest communities, farmers and their associations. Resources must also be devoted to the research necessary to underpin needed advances in the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of agriculture- and forestry-based approaches to mitigation and adaptation.

Policy processes need to be empowering and adaptive to respond to realities on the ground as well as the desires and aspirations of local communities and to ensure good governance. In particular, the role of local institutions in sustainable natural resource management should be given increased recognition, and the rights and roles of indigenous and local and farming communities, especially women and young farmers, must be recognized in developing national mitigation and adaptation strategies.

We commit to strengthening cross-sectoral cooperation to address the drivers of deforestation, enhance sustainable agricultural growth and foster rural development. We recognize that addressing climate change is fundamental to food security and poverty reduction today and for future generations.

Halting Deforestation Now: A Shared Responsibility

Climate change has made it unmistakably clear that the consequences of deforestation are a truly global problem. That’s why halting deforestation to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions must be a shared global responsibility. Exactly how the responsibilities must be shared was the subject of an afternoon plenary session at Forest Day 3, taking place in conjunction with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. 

Sir Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics, who authored the influential Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, examined the question from an economic perspective, emphasizing the relatively low cost of reducing deforestation in comparison with the huge benefits that would result from determined global action. 

Responsibility for designing appropriate policies must reside with the “countries where the trees stand,” Stern said, because they have the best understanding of the conditions required for success. Yet, responsibility for paying the costs of deforestation must be shared globally, and this effort must be part of a larger development strategy that reduces rural poverty. Stern went on to discuss options for financing efforts to halt deforestation, calling on governments to come up with serious financial packages that include new sources of public funds, including debt instruments. 

Hilary Benn, the UK’s Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, reinforced this message about shared responsibilities, citing important examples of commitment and leadership, such as Wangari Maathai’s establishment of the Green Belt Movement, which earned her the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize; UK prime minister Gordon Brown’s recent “game-changing” proposal on “fast-start financing;” and the bold efforts of Eduardo Braga, president of Brazil’s Amazonas State, to drastically reduce deforestation. 

Benn urged governments and climate negotiators to turn the consensus on forests and climate change into a final climate agreement, which he said is the most important thing that can be done now to preserve our natural world. Citing Charles Darwin’s observation that surviving species are not necessarily the strongest or most intelligent but those able to adapt, Benn stressed that the time is now to secure the future of our children and grandchildren.