G20 Agriculture: France defends a proactive approach to reducing the effects of climate change
Stéphane Le Foll attended the G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting held in Xi’an on 3rd June, which covered the topics of food security, sustainable agriculture, innovation and new information technologies.
During the event, and in the wake of COP 21 and the December 2015 Paris Agreement, the minister called on his colleagues to mobilise all innovations – technical (especially agronomic), scientific and social – in favour of a more environmental-friendly and healthy agriculture.
The minister also urged attendees to think about agriculture’s role in finding the solution to the challenges of climate change. In particular, he insisted on the need of working actively and immediately on building avenues to reduce global warming, rather than limiting ourselves to the research of adaptation solutions.
As such, the minister underlined the ambition of the “4‰ Initiative: soils for food security and climate” programme supported by France, which aims to conserve agricultural and forest soil and store carbon. He also invited the ministers to get involved with COP 22, to be held in Marrakech next November. The initiative, joined by over 160 States and organisations, rises to the challenge of climate change by promoting carbon storage, and to that of food security by contributing to soil fertility.