COP28: Food enters the climate discussion – 12/01/2023 – Environment

More than a hundred countries signed, at COP28 in Dubai, the UN conference on climate change, a declaration in which they commit to incorporating, by 2025, into their climate target — the so-called NDC, an acronym for nationally determined contribution — the issue of agriculture and the resilience of food systems.

Brazil is among the 134 signatories of the document that aims to include the issue of the resilience of food systems in the discussion of the climate crisis, released this Friday (1st).

“We highlight that any path to fully achieving the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement must include agriculture and food systems,” the document points out.

In addition to inclusion in the climate target, agriculture and food systems must also be included in adaptation plans, long-term strategies, national biodiversity strategies, action plans and other related strategies.

Actions need to be taken before COP30, in 2025, scheduled to take place in Belém, Brazil.

The document also points out that possible collective progress will already be reviewed at the next climate conference, in 2024.

The declaration talks about policy guidance and public support aimed at agriculture and food to reduce emissions, increase income, water efficiency, with attention also to reducing food waste and degradation of ecosystems.

In Brazil, the expansion of new agricultural fronts —despite the huge degraded and underused areas— directly impacts the health of the country’s biomes, such as the Amazon and the Cerrado.

The document also mentions the need to continue to scale different forms of financing and to accelerate “evidence-based innovations — including local and indigenous knowledge —”, to increase sustainable productivity and promote ecosystem resilience, in addition to improving living conditions. of producers.

Renata Potenza, project coordinator for the climate and agricultural chains initiative at Imaflora, welcomes the deadline set out in the document — that is, 2025, the year in which countries must present new climate goals.

Potenza explains that, in the working group related to agriculture within the UFNCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), there is often difficulty in implementing issues related to mitigation —that is, cutting emissions— and low-carbon agriculture , for example, which hinders the progress of the agenda.

The declaration presented this Friday, however, manages to address these points, despite focusing more on the issue of adaptation to the climate crisis.

The document could, says Potenza, further explore the issue of a just transition and take a closer look, especially at small and medium-sized producers.

According to the Imaflora specialist, Brazil occupies a privileged position to lead this agenda, considering national research institutions with a history in the agricultural area, such as Embrapa. She also mentions the ABC+ Plan, basically the national agricultural plan for low carbon emissions.

It is worth mentioning that the issue of low-carbon agriculture is mentioned in the annex of the current Brazilian NDC.

“But, to achieve this, we need to accelerate, speed up the implementation of these practices in the country. It needs to be scaled up so that we can really see some kind of positive impact in changing the scenario”, he states. “So, we really need these statements to translate into actions.”

The concern with the transition from declaration to action was also highlighted by Ludmilla Rattis, scientist at Ipam (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) and the Woodwell Climate Research Center, especially when considering that the different points made in the text may have different connotations for national and international actors and communities.

Internationally, the declaration was also well received. “Somehow, it took three decades for the source of a third of climate pollution to make it onto the climate agenda, but we are thrilled that it is there,” said Glenn Hurowitz, CEO of the NGO Mighty Earth, in a statement.

Despite this, Hurowitz questions the inclusion of one aspect in the document. “The statement demonstrates a super sophisticated approach to the food system, but it doesn’t call for the single action that will have the biggest impact, which is to eat much less meat and increase consumption of delicious plant-based proteins and other alternatives.”

In addition to the launch of this declaration, COP28 was also the stage for a call from civil society for the integration of the issue of food systems into the Paris Agreement.

“This confluence of crises is an unprecedented global emergency, and we must act with urgency, effort and adequate scale”, points out a text signed by 155 entities, including organizations such as Coalizão Brasil Clima, Florestas e Agricultura, The Nature Conservancy, WWF, Danone, Nestlé, Tetra Pak, Unilever and C40 Cities.