Breaking News: Climate agreement prioritises food security

NaijaAgroNet:

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has hailed the breakthrough in the climate change agreement reached upon at the COP21 which held in Paris, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is coming as FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, applauded the promise to scale up funding for agriculture.

"For the first time ever, food security features in a global climate change accord," he said, stressing that the Paris Agreement often dubbed COP21, recognized "the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the impacts of climate change."

According to him, this underlines the need to "increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience … in a manner that does not threaten food production." 

He further said that this is a game changer for the 800 million people still suffering from chronic hunger, and for 80 per cent of the world's poor who live in rural areas and earn income and feed their families from agriculture sectors. 

“By including food security, the international community fully acknowledged that urgent attention is needed to preserve the well-being and future of those who are on the front line of climate change threats," Graziano da Silva said.

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Prof Larkin faults first draft of Paris Climate Change agreement

NaijaAgroNet:

Professor of Climate Science & Energy Policy at The University of Manchester, Ms Alice Bows Larkin, has faulted the first draft statement at the on-going COP21 in Paris, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Prof. Larkin was responding to the first draft statement released Wednesday afternoon, saying that it does not specific how to reduce global emissions below 2°C.

She pointed out that the latest text from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro which includes a statement that the increase in global average temperatures will be held at least below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

“It says it will try to achieve this by either peaking global emissions as soon as possible or through a long-term global low emissions transformation over this century,” she quoted part of the draft statement.

According to Prof. Larkin, both options refer to the ‘best available science’ which she described as disappointing then that despite clarity from the science, in terms of a need for urgent and deep mitigation, and a limited carbon budget that has been quantified, there is no reference to this budget, stressing it appears that this agreement will not set legally binding CO2 limits.

“So, whilst it is encouraging to see the temperature goal, and even the potential for a more strict (1.5C) temperature goal remains in the text, I would question how mitigation to the extent necessary will be achieved, given the focus is on individual national pledges as opposed to a legally binding carbon budget, that fits with the scientific interpretation of the 2°C goal,” she said.
 
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Sustainable development inseparable from peace, FAO DG

NaijaAgroNet:

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General, Mr. José Graziano Da Silva has said at the ongoing United Nations Climate Conference (COP21) has lamented the increasingly hard meted by hunger and appealed to world leaders to show courage and resilience by opting for changes that promote a safer, fairer and more inclusive world, reports NaijaAgroNet.

He also said that there will be no peace without sustainable development and there will never be sustainable development while people continue to be left behind and while people are suffering from extreme poverty and hunger, stressing "we must demonstrate that we are not afraid" of promoting the changes needed to achieve this.  

Addressing participants in a COP21 High Level Meeting on climate resilience and adaptation, Graziano da Silva pointed out that the launch of  the UN Secretary-General's new “Initiative on Resilience: Anticipate, Absorb, Reshape  (A2R)” aimed at boosting countries' disaster risk reduction efforts.

According to him, climate change "affects all of us, but especially the poorest and hungry people," underscoring how smallholders and family farmers are in the front line.

The most vulnerable, he said, must be helped to adapt to climate change, pointing out that in relation to the agricultural sectors, this requires environmentally sound initiatives that must go hand-in-hand with mitigating climate change impacts.

 

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FAO joins 40,000 delegates at Paris COP21 Climate Confab

NaijaAgroNet:

 The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) would this weekend join some 40,000 delegates from 195 countries, to the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention Climate Change (COP21) holding in Paris, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is coming as Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari would join other heads of state and prominent figures to the Paris meeting in solidarity against climate change, slated to hold gather in Paris 30 November – 11 December.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the Paris climate conference is aimed at producing a legally binding agreement to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Climate change threatens to derail efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, with the heaviest effects being felt by the poor -- including millions of small-scale farmers -- who have contributed least to the problem.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries hold great potential to be a transformational force in the global response to climate change, provided that the international community initiates a shift towards food systems that are more resilient, more productive, and more sustainable.

Events listed for Paris confab include high-level FAO participation in addition to other FAO experts engagement on ground.

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