Paris Agreement edges toward enforcement

VIDEO: Paris Agreement edges toward enforcement - World leaders gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York to bring the Paris Agreement closer toward entry into force. Here’s a summary of how far it has come.

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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.

Louisa Effiong/GEE

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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.
 
@Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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