Tag Archive for: Climate Change

Protecting and Developing African Agriculture in the Face of Climate Change

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Author: Patrick Dupoux and Younes Zrikem | Published: November 18, 2016

The United Nations 2016 climate change conference (COP 22), meeting this week—through Nov. 18—in Marrakech, Morocco, presents an historic opportunity to refocus the global community’s attention on the need to help developing nations adapt to climate change. In no area could this be more pressing than Africa, where protecting food security and ending hunger is an urgent necessity.

During the COP21 last year in Paris, the world’s developed nations reaffirmed their commitment to provide at least $100 billion per year, beginning in 2020, to help developing nations combat climate change.

In the past, most funds have been used on mitigation projects—those intended to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. But there is a growing consensus that work focused on adapting to climate change is of equal importance and more funding needs to be devoted to it.

This is a step in the right direction. With 28 African countries expected to more than double in population by 2050, and 10 African countries—Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia—expected to grow “by at least a factor of five” by 2100, according to the U. N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Africa will be hard pressed to feed itself as temperature increases drive farm production down.

While increases in temperature and carbon dioxide “can increase some crop yields in some places,” experts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have noted, Africa isn’t among them.

In fact, the opposite is true: The scientific consensus is that a temperature increase of 2°Celsius would result in an average reduction of 15% to 20% in agricultural yields on the continent.

The Center for Global Development’s 2011 report, “Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change Implications for Adaptation Assistance,” forecasts median agricultural productivity losses due to climate change ranging from 18% in North Africa to 19.8% in Central Africa through 2050.

The weak output in Africa, reinforced by a spike in temperatures and exacerbated by extreme climate events, could create a vicious loop of food insecurity, impoverishment, mass migration and, finally, armed conflict. Climate-related migration and conflict already are a reality on the continent, and more often than not they are related to agriculture and food.

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Farm Impasse at Climate Talks Threatens Goal to End Hunger – FAO Chief

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Author: Megan Rowling | Published: November 16, 2016

A lack of progress on agricultural issues at the U.N. climate talks in Morocco puts at risk efforts to help farmers adapt to climate change and meet a global goal to end hunger by 2030, the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said on Wednesday.

Ahead of the negotiations, which are due to end on Friday, development agencies had hoped for the establishment of a work plan on agriculture that would pave the way for more concrete discussions on assistance for struggling small-scale farmers.

But governments have failed to agree on that, and plan to push a decision to next year. The impasse has happened even though the new global climate deal, crafted in Paris in 2015, recognises the importance of food security for the first time.

“We had been working since Paris… to push agriculture to be at the center of this meeting (in Marrakesh),” said José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “It is very disappointing.”

Rich nations have long pressured developing countries to address ways to curb planet-warming emissions from their farms, while poorer states would rather focus on how farmers can adjust to rising temperatures and worsening droughts and floods.

Graziano da Silva said the talks in Marrakesh had mainly rehashed old arguments. A division between cutting emissions and adaptation to climate change “does not apply to agriculture”, he said in an interview on the sidelines of the negotiations.

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Sustainable Incentives: How Not to Eat the Planet

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Author: Adolfo Brizzi | Published: November 16, 2016

More than seven billion people currently call our planet home, and their lives depend on finite resources. With both climate change impacts and populations on the rise, we need to understand how we can meet the growing food demand while simultaneously preserving the environment and building community resilience. Agriculture and the environment are often in competition, because one needs to use what the other needs to conserve. Building sustainable agriculture is therefore critical for our future, especially in view of climate change.

Agriculture is severely affected by climate change. It is estimated that by 2050, 22 per cent of cultivated areas will suffer impacts, agricultural production will shrink by 2 per cent every decade and rising ocean temperatures and acid levels will lead to declines in fish stocks. At the same time, demand for food will increase by 14 per cent and we will need twice as much dairy and meat products than were produced in 2000.

The 2.5 billion smallholder farmers around the world, who are predominantly poor, have been seen as both the victims and the culprits of climate change. Poverty can lead to people to act in self-defeating ways, for example farming in destructive ways that are unsustainable and contribute to climate change.

Farmers know that “eating the planet” in order to feed their families undermines the very sustainability of their production systems and their own food security in the future. But they continue to do so for three main reasons.

KEEP READING ON THE HUFFINGTON POST 

UN Agency Calls for Global Transformation of Agriculture in the Face of a Changing Climate

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Author: Sreya Panuganti | Published: November 15, 2016

A recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that over the next 15 years, climate change will add to the number of people living in poverty via its effects on the agriculture and food sectors. By 2030, climate-related effects on food-related livelihoods could lead to an additional 35 to 122 million impoverished people, according to the 2016 State of Food and Agriculture Report.

The annual report projects the future of farming and food security in the face of a changing climate. It advocates for a broad-based transformation of agricultural systems “to ensure global food security, provide economic and social opportunities for all, protect the ecosystem services on which agriculture depends, and build resilience to climate change.”

While this kind of transformation won’t be easy, the FAO makes policy recommendations and suggests technical and financial mechanisms that will put farmers and governments on the right path.

Agriculture, at the intersection of human activity and natural resources, “holds the key to solving the two greatest challenges facing humanity: eradicating poverty and maintaining the stable climatic corridor in which civilization can thrive,” writes José Graziano da Silva, the FAO director-general.

But “without adaptation to climate change,” the report states, “it will not be possible to achieve food security for all and eradicate hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.”

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Farming Carbon into Soils and Trees: A Climate-Smart Mid-Century Strategy for Agriculture

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Author: Marcia Delonge | Published: November 14, 2016

In 2050, the Paris Agreement will be 34 years old,  Google will be 52,  the National Park Service will be 134, the tractor will be 158, the United States will be 274, and hopefully we’ll all be celebrating being well along the way to a cooler future. While it may seem like a lot of time, there’s a lot of work ahead of us.

That’s why leaders around the world have been working in the aftermath of the Paris Agreement to develop strategies to reduce net global warming emissions to established goals by mid-century (2050). As it turns out, an important part of this work has to do with boosting food, farms, and farmers—and that’s what I’ll talk about. However, if you’d like to learn about other solutions, check out the posts by my colleagues on biofuels, forests, and the energy sector.

First, a note about the land carbon “sink”

There is growing awareness of the value of the so-called “land carbon sink”. What is this all about?  Well, plants and soils store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere. The more carbon can be “sequestered” into leaves, roots, stems tree trunks, and soils each year, the bigger the carbon “sink” and the smaller the climate change problem. Currently, about 762 million Mt CO2e worth of carbon are stored in plants and soils in the US. This is significant—enough to offset 11% of emissions— but insufficient given the magnitude of the climate change problem. Not only that, but since storing more carbon in lands also means building and protecting healthier soils, an investment in soil health simply makes sense. Luckily, the USDA already has a plan to help farms and forests sequester or offset an extra 120 million Mt CO2e/y (by 2025). This plan is a step in the right direction, but we can do better.

KEEP READING ON SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Agriculture Gets Attention at COP22 With AAA Initiative

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Author: Chuka Uroko | Published: November 15, 2016

For the first time in the 22 years of  Conference of Parties (COP) session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agriculture is being  given attention during climate discussions at the ongoing  COP22 conference in Marrakech, Morocco.

This will be made possible by the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA) to Climate Change initiative adopted in September this year by a coalition of 27 African countries who gave their backing and commitment to placing this initiative at the heart of COP22 negotiations.

Pitched as a major challenge for the COP22, agriculture is for the first time in the history of the COP brought to the forefront of climate discussions.

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Agriculture and Food Security at Heart of Climate Change Action

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Published: November 16, 2016

The world must rapidly move to scale up actions and ambitions on climate change FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told delegates at the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP22) in Morocco today.

Speaking at the high-level action day on agriculture and food security, Graziano da Silva noted that climate change impacts on agriculture – including crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, land and water – are already undermining global efforts to assure food security and nutrition.

And the rural poor are the most affected.

With over 90 percent of countries referring to the important role of agriculture in their national plans to adapt to and mitigate climate change, Graziano da Silva stressed that

“it is time to invest in sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture as a fundamental part of the climate solution.”

Last year’s conference in Paris led to the world’s first legally binding global climate deal. The current summit in Marrakech, Morocco is geared to implementation of the pledges all signatory countries made. Echoing the prevalent spirit at the COP, the Paris Agreement is irreversible and inaction would be a disaster for the world.

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Reframing Agriculture In The Climate Change Discussion

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Author: Alice Cunningham | Published: November 16, 2016

When it comes to climate change, the problem and the solution may be one and the same.

This week in Marrakesh, government leaders will meet for the last leg of the UN Climate Change Summit (COP 22) and it is clear we are at a critical moment in our history. Man-made changes to the climate threaten humanity’s security on Earth. Though we are taking steps globally to reduce emissions from industry, transportation and heat production, another source accounts for 24 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA.

That problem is farming.

Agriculture is the largest-single contributor to the climate crisis. The UN’s 2013 Trade and Environment Review points to agriculture as responsible for 43-57 percent of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. The current degenerative farming system results in the loss of 50-75 percent of cultivated soils’ original carbon content. By destroying soil nutrients through the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, conventional agriculture jeopardizes food security and nutrition, and reduces ecosystems’ resiliency to flood and drought by removing the protective buffer provided by soil’s organic carbon.

Industrial agriculture is additionally responsible for large-scale degradation through factory farming, waste lagoons, antibiotics and growth hormones, GMOs, monocultures, and prolific use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. But there is a biological process for reversing this damage and providing climate stabilization that’s tried and tested, available for widespread dissemination now, costs little and is locally adaptable.

That solution is farming.

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African Nations Have the Will to Adapt Agriculture to Climate Change

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Author: Elwyn Grainger-Jones | Published: November 15, 2016

Ask an African farmer how climate change is affecting the community, and the response will be unequivocal. “It cut off my means of survival,” 66 year old Zimbabwean farmer Amon Makonese told us just last month, referring to the El Niño induced drought which struck last year. “It was one of the worst droughts we have ever seen,” he added. “I planted three hectares of maize, but it all wilted”.

This story of failed harvest, hunger and hopelessness as temperatures rise is common across the continent. In fact, it is estimated that 65 percent of Africa’s population is affected by climate change. The need for agriculture, which feeds the chronically food insecure region and forms the backbone of its economy, to adapt to these extreme weather events is becoming urgent.

Yet disappointingly, here at COP22 in Marrakech, dubbed both “The African COP” and “The COP of Action,” talks to include agriculture in the climate change negotiations have once again collapsed. Disputes on how to integrate adaptation and mitigation efforts have led to any further discussions being postponed until June 2017 at the next meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) in Bonn.

Lack of progress at a global level makes regional action all the more critical. That is why the Moroccan government is championing the adaptation of African agriculture (AAA), through the launch of the ambitious AAA initiative.

At an event held in Marrakech, scientists and policymakers from all over Africa came together to determine an action plan for implementing this initiative, based on a rich body of evidence generated by the global research network CGIAR and its many partners. Taken together with the clear desire for action by African countries that prioritised agriculture in their national climate plans, there is significant potential to transform food and farming under climate change.

KEEP READING ON ALL AFRICA

New View: Carbon Is Not the Enemy

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Author: Mark Fischetti | Published: November 14, 2016

Carbon dioxide is bad—it causes global warming. Carbon dioxide is political—U.S. democrats want regulations to reduce emissions into the atmosphere and republicans, led by president-elect Donald Trump, want to scrap such rules. But William McDonough says all that is wrong. “Carbon is not the enemy,” he said in a keynote speech at the recent SXSW Eco conference. The same phrase headlines his new commentary published today in Nature. “It is we who have made carbon toxic,” he writes. “In the right place, carbon is a resource and a tool.”

McDonough, founder of William McDonough + Partners, is a world-renowned architect, designer and urban planner. He has spearheaded several design movements—reflected in titles of his bestselling books such as Cradle to Cradle, and The Upcycle—as well as the idea of a circular economy. They all champion smarter ways to design products, buildings and communities to use resources more sustainably, generate less waste and create positive impacts rather than just minimize negative ones.

His latest point is that citizens and their politicians have to change the conversation about carbon. Climate change, he maintains, is a design failure, a breakdown in the natural carbon cycle caused by humans. By rethinking how we design things, especially cities, we can restore the natural carbon cycle and exploit it for human gain, creating positive environmental impacts rather than harm.

He claims that the focus of carbon regulation is also out of whack. “Striving for less pollution means we will do less bad,” he noted at SXSW Eco. “Instead we should ask, what can we do that creates more good?”

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